i 
i 
! 


s 


II 





As a Cause 



THE GREAT WA 



l!y ( j;;i'.!AR 




Class _____ 

Book 

Copyright N?_ 



CQHKRIGHT DEPOSrr 



THE ANGLO-GERMAN COMMERCIAL AND 

COLONIAL RIVALRY AS A CAUSE OF 

THE GREAT WAR 



The Anglo-German 

Commercial and Colonial 

Rivalry as a Cause of 

The Great War 

A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE DEPART- 
MENT OF HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES 

By OSCAR ALBERT MARTI, M.A. 




BOSTON 

The Stratford Company, Publishers 

1917 






Copyright 1917 

The STRATFORD CO., Publishers 

Boston, Mass. 






OCT 29"I9I7 



The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., IT. S. A. 



' CI. A 4 7 7 3 5 5 



Contents 

Page 
Introductory ix 

CHAPTER I 

The Colonial Ascendency op Great Britain 

The Anglophile's and the Anglophobe's different views 
of the world civilizing mission of England. — 
Britain's slow growth and present prepondering 
influence. — Germany's rapid growth and threat- 
ening attitude. — England 's tardiness on the Colo- 
nial field and reasons for it. — Elizabeth's reign 
marks the beginning of British expansion. — The 
second and third phases of that expansion. — The 
century and a quarter rivalry between England 
and France. — Three fold British policy since 
1815. — Maritime supremacy and the attitude of 
Germany regarding it. — Neutrality of Belgium. — 
Strategic importance of the Low Countries. — 
Theory of a balance of power. — Germany really 
hostile to that policy. — Her desire to overthrow 
the world empire of England due to economic ex- 
pansion. — Treitschke's disparaging views of the 
British supremacy. — England's counter argu- 
ments. — England's policies called for peace 
not war 1 

CHAPTER II 

The Rise and Progress op Imperial Germany 

Beginning of the Modern Germans. — Charlemagne's 
Empire. — Abortive attempts of German rulers 



CONTENTS 

for world domain. — German political individu- 
alism. — Rise of the Prussian hegemony. — Part 
played by Bismarck. — Union consumated in 
1871. — Bismarck's economic program : his at- 
tude. — Result of Germany's political consolida- 
tion on her economic progress. — Germany the real 
enemy of England. — The issue between Germany 
and England shifted to the quarrels of smaller 
states. — Rise of the German merchant marine. — 
Clash between Germany and England due to the i 
former's search for colonial possessions. — Eng- ' 
land's preoccupation of the field. — Extent of 
Germany's colonial possessions. — Their doubtful 
economic value 19 

CHAPTER III 

Pan-Germanism and the Weltpolitik 

Nature and object of Pan-Germanism. — Origin of the 
movement. — France regarded as an object in the 
way for its realization. — Success of its propagat- 
ors. — Political unity not necessarily aimed at. — 
Extent of the field of Pan-Germanism. — Quota- 
tions that convince of its existence. — Development 
of the Weltpolitik ideal. — Reasons for its rapid 
spread. — German disparagement of other races. 
— The real aim of Pan-Germanism and Welt- 
politik the acquisition of a colonial preponderance. 35 

CHAPTER IV 

The Moroccan Crisis 

Diligence of William II in prosecuting his designs for 
colonial domain. — Economic and strategic im- 



CONTENTS 

portance of Morocco. — The Anglo-French agree- 
ment. — Theatrical entrance of William II into 
Tangier. — Results in England and in France; the 
Kaiser's real aim in the matter. — The Conference 
at Algeciras. — Continued aggression of France in 
Morocco. — Revolution at Fez; France gains the 
preponderance in Morocco. — Germany's protest; 
she sends the gunboat Panther to Agadir; her de- 
mands. — Sir Edward Grey 's warning to Germany. 

— The Triple Entente greatly handicapped at the 
time. — The German-French understanding. — The 
Kaiser's designs concerning Agadir. — The affair 
reveals the financial dependence of Germany on 
the other powers. — Aftermath of the Agadir 
incident 44 

CHAPTER V 

The Strangling op Persia 

Attitude of the powers concerning Mohammedan states 
still independent. — German interests in Persia 
not vital yet real. — Persian manifesto to their 
sultan; the revolution at Teheran. — A new con- 
stitution promulgated. — The action of Russia and 
England. — The Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907. 

— Persia long the scene of a struggle for commer- 
cial ascendency; its economic importance. — Ger- 
many considers Persia a legitimate field for ex- 
pansion; her attitude toward the Anglo-Russian 
agreement. — Russia and England take action in 
Persia to secure certain loans formerly made. — 
The Shuster affair. — Persian independence made 
void by the interference of England and Russia. — 

Germany's colonial ambitions again foiled . . 57 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VI 

The Baghdad Railway Project 

The "Drang nach Osten" and its significance. — Early 
attempts of England to project a trans-Asiatic 
railroad. — Germany's great prospect in Asiatic 
Turkey. — The Cretan affair 1897-98; Germany's 
bargain with the sultan. — The proposed route and 
extent of the grant made to the Kaiser. — 
The Ismidt-Angora-Konia branch. \ — The 
German Anatola Railway Company's pro- 
posal, estimated cost of the road. — Great Bri- 
tain's misgivings. — Part played by Pan-Ger- 
manism ; an all-rail-all-German route from the Per- 
sian Gulf to the North Sea. — Reason for Eng- 
land's indifference toward financial co-operation 
in the project. — Denial by Germany of designs 
for political aggression in Asia Minor and Meso- 
potamia. — Great Britain wide awake to Ger- 
many's designs. — Steps taken to intercept Ger- 
many. — Germany foiled by the agreement of 
Koweit. — She uneasily awaited the "day of 
reckoning with England" 65 

Conclusion 77 

Bibliography 79 



vm 



Introductory 

THE following extract from the vision of the late 
Tolstoi is highly prophetic of the grave disaster 
which at this time threatens to involve the whole 
civilized world — the European war. The prophecy 
written in 1910, and sent by this Russian novelist and 
socialist to the Emperors of Russia and Germany, and 
also to the King of England, runs as follows: "I see 
floating upon the surface of the sea of human fate the 
huge silhouette of a nude woman. She is in her 
beauty, her poise, her smiles, her jewels — a super- 
Venus. Nations rush madly after her, each eager to 
attract her especially. But she . . . flirts with all. 
In her hair ornaments of diamonds and rubies is en- 
graved her name Commercialism! . . . much destruc- 
tion follows in her wake . . . her looks of greed are so 
much poison to the nations who fall victims to her 
charms. And behold ! she has three gigantic arms 
with three torches of universal corruption in her 
hands. The first torch represents the flame of war 
that the beautiful courtesan carries from city to city 
and from country to country." 1 

Time and again certain sections of the world have 
been deluged with the blood of victims sacrificed in 
wars over religious tenets, over racial prejudices, over 
dynastic controversies and jealousies; but we are safe 

x Shiep, "Handbook of the European War," p. 1. 



INTRODUCTORY 

in asserting that wars caused by commercial and pro- 
vincial rivalries have been the bitterest and the most 
sanguine of them all. No one will doubt this who has 
witnessed the events of the past thirty dark months 
when he is shown that the causes of the war are due 
to the commercial and colonial rivalries of the greater 
and the lesser powers of Europe. 

That the present war is not due to religious differ- 
ences on the part of the combatants is evident from the 
fact that Protestant England is in alliance with Cath- 
olic (Greek) Russia, and Catholic (Roman) Portugal; 
and the Christian and the Infidel are brothers in arms, 
fighting each other's battles in the armies of the Cen- 
tral powers. In the same manner racial animosities 
and ties are annulled in the fact that German is ar- 
rayed against German and Slav against Slav in the 
deadly conflict. That dynastic considerations had no 
influence in precipitating the war is also manifest in 
the fact that Germany and England, whose royal 
houses are intimately related through marital ties, are 
the sorest enemies. 

A recent writer has summed up the situation in 
words like these: "All modern wars are essentially 
commercial, and war is, in fact, an inevitable con- 
comitant of trade expansion. " : The Phoenicians who 
were the first in the field of thalassic colonial expan- 
sion succeeded in keeping out competitors by holding 
their trade routes a profound secret ; this was in an- 

2 Johnson, "International Conciliation," April, 1914, p. 4. 



INTRODUCTORY 



cient times. During the period of the Crusades the 
trade of the Levant animated the mutual hatred of the 
Italian cities ; but not to the extent of open war. It 
has remained for the writers of modern history to 
record the dire effects brought about through wars 
over commerce. Immediately after the discovery of 
the New World by Columbus a papal line of demarca- 
tion saved the Spaniard and the Portugese from a 
clash of arms; but by the middle of the seventeenth 
century, the English and the Dutch sprang at one an- 
other's throats after a protracted wrangle over the 
herring fisheries of the North Sea, the whale fishery 
of the Arctic Ocean, the West Indian market, and the 
continental cloth trade. The Dutch having been 
worsted in the conflict, the struggle was resumed by 
the English and the French, who carried it on until 
the opening of the nineteenth century. This rivalry 
embraced four distinct fields ; namely, India, the West 
Coast of Africa, the West Indies, and North America. 
The struggle was prosecuted with such vehemence that 
one writer was forced to say that the herring and the 
clove had caused more bloodshed than anything save 
the Christian religion. Likewise it has been said, "A 
most interesting essay might be written on the educa- 
tion of the European palate for foreign foods and 
drinks such as tea, coffee, sugar, and rum, in mould- 
ing the fate of races and of empires." 1 

3 Channing, "History of the United States," II, p. 281. 



XI 



INTRODUCTORY 

A case in point is the War of the Spanish Succes- 
sion (1702-1713) . This struggle was carried on to pre- 
vent the crowns of France and Spain being placed on 
the head of a single heir of the house of Bourbon. At 
that time Spain controlled, and was attempting to 
maintain the monopoly on the trade of the New World. 
The English and the Dutch traders were encroaching 
on this monopoly by smuggling. These merchants saw 
that if Spain and France were brought under a single 
political head enough force could be brought to bear 
to intercept their illicit trade. Hence it was the com- 
mercial interests that brought influence to bear in 
bringing about the war.* To bear out the fact that 
most of the modern wars were brought about largely 
by a desire for commercial and territorial expansion, 
one has merely to look into the causes of some of the 
recent wars. The Crimean war, the Boer war, the 
Russian-Japanese war, the Turco-Italian war, the Bal- 
kan wars, all savor strongly of these elements. 6 A very 
vivid example of these was the recent Russo-Japanese 
war ;" but the present great conflict in Europe is a still 
more obvious result of colonial expansion and conten- 
tion over trading rights. 

Mr. W. J. Bryan in a convincing "peace" speech 
delivered at Los Angeles in September, 1915, spoke of 
the present conflict as the great causeless war. Cold 

4 Robinson and Beard, "The Development of Modern Europe," I, p. 38. 
international Conciliation, April, 1914, p. 3. 

6 Robinson and Beard, "The Development of Modern Europe," II, 
p. 350. 

xii 



INTRODUCTORY 

facts, however, will convince the close observer, when 
he once looks into and weighs them, that there is a very 
serious and a real cause for this great world battle. 
That cause above all others was the colonial and com- 
mercial rivalries of the several nations of Europe as 
they center, in their interests, around England and 
Germany 7 who stand at the head of the Triple En- 
tente, and the Triple Alliance respectively. "It has 
long been evident to students of world politics that 
there is only one international situation which threat- 
ens the peace of the civilized world. That is the rivalry 
between England and Germany. There is no other 
rivalry, dispute, or misunderstanding between nations 
that could not be settled peacefully and quickly if this 
Anglo-German problem did not, directly or indirectly, 
retard such a settlement. German and British policies 
on four continents are determined or conditioned by 

7 "England with her long history of successful aggression, with her 
marvelous conviction that in persuing her interests she is spread- 
ing light among nations dwelling in darkness, and Germany, bone 
of the same bone, blood of the same blood, with a lesser force 
but perhaps a keener intelligence, compete in every corner of the 
globe. In the Transvaal, at the Cape, in Central Africa, in India 
and the East, in the islands of the South Sea, and in the far 
Northwest, wherever — and where has it not? — the flag has fol- 
lowed the Bible, there the German bagman is struggling with the 
English pedlar. Is there a mine to exploit, a railroad to build, 
a native to convert, from breadfruit to tinned meat, from temper- 
ance to trade gin, the German and the Englishman is struggling 
to be first. A million petty disputes build up the greatest cause 
of war the world has ever seen. If Germany were extinguished 
tomorrow there is not an Englishman in the world who would not 
be richer. Nations have fought for years over a city or right of 
succession. Must they not fight for two hundred fifty million 
pounds of commerce." — Rohrbach, "German World Policies," 
p. 180. Quoted from the "Saturday Review," September, 1897. 



INTRODUCTORY 

the mutual enmity and fear of these two powers. Be- 
cause British policies and interests clash with German 
policies and interests, Europe is divided into two great 
groupings of nations, which during the past half de- 
cade have almost evenly balanced the military strength 
of the continent, and it has been the fear of disturbing 
this balance that has prevented the settlement of more 
than one grave political and economic and social ques- 
tion." 1 The balance spoken of here was greatly agi- 
tated in the attempt of the Entente powers to isolate 
Germany and to thwart her in her designs on the col- 
onial field of the world. The event at Serajevo on 
June 29, 1914, was merely a hair thrown on the al- 
ready trembling scale that now threatens to the utter- 
most that equipoise. 

8 "Review of Reviews," XLV, p. 281. 



CHAPTER I 

The Colonial Ascendency of 
Great Britain 

THE tendency of the political development of 
the English People according to her own his- 
torians, and Anglophiles in general, has been 
one steady trend towards liberty and democracy. The 
English speaking people have regarded themselves 
as the torchbearers of that civilization which the 
world, at the first decade of the twentieth century, 
realized it had attained. From the standpoint ot 
the Germans, however, England is viewed as the 
great robber state that, having taken advantage of 
the misfortunes of the other nations, gobbled up one- 
fifth of the land area of the habitable world and 
insists on holding possession, not by virtue of her 
power to defend, but by reason of her ability to 
bluff. Germany, also, regards herself as the heir 
presumptive to the colonial kingdom of the world. 
To her, England is a colossus with feet of iron mixed 
with miry clay; while Germany is the stone destined 
to smite the image on the feet, to its utter destruction, 
and eventually to become the great mountain that 
will fill the whole earth. She scores against Eng- 
land, in her boast as the torchbearer, the point that 

[1] 



The Cause of the Great War 

her policy towards the native races of some of her 
possessions has been characterized by negligence and 
inefficiency of administration. Instead of elevating 
such subject races to the educational and religious 
ideals she herself possesses, she has left them wrap- 
ped in their original ignorance and superstition; and 
the liberty and democracy of which England boasts 
is wholly unable to adapt itself to native conditions; 
hence it is inferior, false, and should be superseded 
by a better. 

However this may be, it is a vivid fact that Eng- 
land has succeeded, through several centuries past, in 
building up a mammoth colonial empire; and has 
especially for the last one hundred years predomi- 
nated in international politics. There has also come, 
within the last helf century, out of a cluster of in- 
dependent states closely associated by racial ties, 
the consolidation of an empire in central Europe 
which has gravely threatened, and has by dint of 
economic efficiency seriously competed with the com- 
mercial ascendency that England has enjoyed so long 
in virtue of her vast possessions and undisputed 
supremacy. That empire is Germany; which now 
menaces the colonial empire of Great Britain. In 
the present chapter and the one which is to follow, we 
shall attempt to trace the rise and the colonial fortunes 
of these two empires; and also to show how a trade 
rivalry between them was in evidence ; and finally in 
the remaining chapters of this thesis we will point 

[2] 



The Colonial Ascendency of Great Britain 

out how this rivalry, in which other nations of Eu- 
rope participated, led up to the present armed con- 
flict. 

England in her time, just like Germany at a later 
period in history, was late in her entrance into the 
colonial field. This was due to various reasons. At 
the time when Columbus discovered America and 
opened that great and effectual door for discovery 
exploration, and colonization into which Spain and 
Portugal immediately stepped, a penurious king was 
on the throne of England. This king, Henry VII, pur- 
sued also a policy that was mostly domestic and hence 
very little encouragement was given to over sea ex- 
pansion. As a consequence nothing outside of the 
voyage of the Cabots was accomplished. During the 
next three-quarters of a century the Reformation in 
England engaged the undivided attention of both the 
king and the people to affairs mainly within the realm, 
so that little if anything was accomplished in the 
way of expansion until the latter half of the six- 
teenth century. Thus while Spain and Portugal, the 
leading maritime nations of the time, were coming 
into possession of large tracts of territories and co- 
lonial holdings both in the East and the West. Eng- 
land did nothing that was worth while in the way 
of trans-oceanic expansion. 

It was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth that Eng- 
land began a process of expansion into Greater Bri- 
tain that has never been discontinued since. This 

[3] 



The Cause of the Great War 

was inaugurated by such men as John Hawkins and 
Francis Drake, daring sea rovers, who by practical 
onslaughts broke through the Spanish monopoly of 
the West Indies and South America ; and in this way 
pioneered the way for British commerce and enter- 
prise to all parts of the world. The maritime su- 
premacy of Spain was irretrievably shattered by the 
destruction of the Invincible Armada in 1588. "This 
event marks the moment when the period of the mari- 
time supremacy of England begins and a time when 
her naval apprenticeship closes. It is also a time when 
the internal condition of the nation has been righted. 
Up to this time also, England had looked to the con- 
tinent of Europe as the only possible and feasible 
field for her territorial growth; but now she begins 
to look towards the ocean and the New World as a 
possible field of expansion. From this time on Eng- 
land becomes industrial and maritime." 9 

Another step towards British colonial supremacy 
is marked by the Revolution of 1648. Here we have 
the beginning of the British naval power as organized 
by Blake and Vane under the Commonwealth. It was 
at this time that England awakened as she never had 
before to the strategic importance of her geographical 
position in that her isolation from the Continent shut 
her off from fear of any attack by a neighboring state. 
The triumphs of the armies of Cromwell, his policy of 
making England a military state, and his successful 

8 See Seeley, "Expansion of England," Lecture VII, 144 ff. 

[4] 



The Colonial Ascendency op Great Britain 

expedition against the West Indies in which he 
wrested Jamaica from the Spanish Empire added to 
the confidence and prestige of the British people ; and 
gave them a taste for maritime supremacy which 
henceforth developed at a remarkable rate. 

The next phase towards colonial and maritime su- 
premacy on the part of England is the naval duel 
she fought with Holland in the first half of the reign 
of Charles II. This was the culmination of that pro- 
longed rivalry between the two nations for the herring 
fisheries, the whale fisheries, the cloth trade, and the 
East Indian market. It had its beginning really 
with the massacre of Amboyna in 1623, when the 
Dutch destroyed an English trading settlement on 
the island of Amboyna in the East Indies. It ended 
in 1674, when Charles II withdrew from a proposed 
attack on Holland, which he had designed in combina- 
tion with Louis XIV. This series of wars between 
the English and the Dutch marks the end of the 
supremacy of the latter on the ocean. 

It was with the French that the English experi- 
enced the most protracted and the bitterest struggle 
for maritime and colonial ascendency. This began 
in 1680 and had its ending, practically, in 1815, at 
the close of the Napoleonic Wars. The rivalry em- 
braced four fields of activity which were widely 
separated from each other; namely, India, West 

[5] 



The Cause of the Great War 

Africa, the West Indies and North America. 10 It 
had its turning point, however, in the Seven Years 
War, known in America as the French and Indian 
War. In this struggle, which ended in 1763, the 
British were everywhere successful ; and when the 
rivalry came to an end in the first quarter of the 
nineteenth century, it left the British colonial empire 
the same, with few exceptions, as we find it today. 
It now embraces, roughly speaking, parts of Africa, 
India, Canada, Australia, Jamaica with other portions 
of the West Indies, British Guiana, British Honduras, 
and numerous islands in the Atlantic and Pacific- 
Oceans. In the Mediterranean, also, England holds 
such strategic points as Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus and 
Suez; which practically give her the control of that 
sea, and insure her route to India. Her possessions 
in various parts of the earth place her in control of 
points of such strategic significance as to make her 
the mistress of the ocean. 

For years it has been the determination of England 
to pursue a three fold policy from which she thinks 
her best interests will never permit her to deviate ; 
and over which she and her allies are now engaged in 
a life and death struggle with Germany. This policy 
is the neutrality of the Low Countries, especially 
Belgium; 11 the balance of power in Europe; and her 

10 Andrews, Anglo-French Commercial Rivalry, "American Historical 

Reviews," XX, pp. 539-556. 
lx The neutralization of Belgium dates from the treaty of November 

15, 1831; but on April 19, 1839, the five great powers of Europe 

[6] 



The Colonial Ascendency op Great Britain 

own supremacy on the ocean. No other people like 
the English realize so fully the meaning of the words 
of the German Emperor, speaking to his own people, 
when he said : ' ' Imperial power means sea power, and 
imperial power and sea power are complementary; 
the one cannot exist without the other," 12 they think, 
however, that these words apply to their own situa- 
tion. This has been the burning cause for the race 
for armaments that has characterized the policies of 
Germany and Great Britain during the past decade 
and a half. There has been a cry in Germany that her 
future lies on the sea, and England knows full well 
that if such a dream is ever realized by the Germans 
her own future is seriously at stake. The alienation' 
that exists between England and Germany grew out 
of the naval policy of the latter, and this policy in 
turn sprung out of Germany's commercial and co- 
lonial aggression due, primarily, to her economic ex- 
pansion. When the present war broke out Germany 
was England's chief competitor in the commercial 
field. She desired the right to carry on her trade side 
by side with Great Britain ; and to build and main- 
tain a navy equal to that of her rival. This policy 
England thought to be not only unfair, but actually 

signed the Quintruple Treaty in which the independence and 
neutrality of Belgium was guaranteed by the contracting parties. 
On August 9, 1870, near the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian 
war, a treaty was signed at London between Great Britain and 
Prussia in which the guarantee of the treaty of 1839 was 
acknowledged by Prussia. 
12 Dawson, "The Evolution of Modern Germany," p. 349. 

[7] 



The Cause op the Great War 

suicidal; since, owing to Germany's keen competitive 
instinct, the very ability that would bring her to 
,an equality with the mistress of the seas would soon 
'.manifest itself in a complete maritime supremacy. 

Again it was a matter of stern reality that England 
should regard the maintenance of her maritime su- 
premacy as a thing absolutely essential to her very 
existence as a nation. That country is fundamentally 
an industrial and commercial nation; and her forty- 
five millions of people, if thrown for a few months 
only on the mere resources of that which the island 
alone affords, would be utterly helpless. It is her lot 
to devise and to perpetuate the means by which she 
may be enabled to hold open the markets of the 
world for her own manufactured products, and for 
the bringing to her own shores the raw materials 
for her factories and the food for her workers. 
Stripped of the protection of an adequate fleet, and 
menaced by a hostile army and navy, the English 
people could be brought to submission within a few 
weeks without the firing of a single shot. 

Germany, on the other hand, also contends that a 
strong navy is vital to her national existence ; as the 
following extract from General Blernhardi's book, 
"Germany and the Next "War," 13 will show. " 'Ger- 
many's future lies on the sea'. A proud saying which 
contains a great truth. If the German people wish 
to attain a great future . . . they must adopt a world 

13 Bernhardi, "Germany and the Next War," p. 226. 

[8] 



The Colonial Ascendency op Great Britain 

policy and act as a world power. This task cannot 
be done unless they are supported by an adequate sea 
power. Our fleet must be strong enough at least, that 
a war with us involves such danger even to the strong- 
est opponent, that the losses that might be expected, 
would endanger his position as a world power. ' ' This 
is evidently directed against England, who is the 
"strongest opponent" with whom Germany has had 
to deal. Again the same author says: 14 "Now we can 
only stake our forces safely on a world policy if our 
political and military superiority on the continent 
of Europe be immovably established. This goal must 
be our first objective. We must take steps to develop 
by sea also a power which is sufficient for our pre- 
tentions. To guard our coasts and repel over sea at- 
tacks is necessary for the security of our continental 
position. It is an economic necessity for us to pro- 
tect the freedom of the seas, since our people depend 
for a livelihood on the export industry, and this in 
turn requires a large import trade." Now if this is 
true of Germany, with a short strip of sea coast to de- 
fend, and we are sure that it is true of her to large ex- 
tent under present international conditions ; how much 
more can it be applied to England, which is accessible 
from all points by the sea. 

' ' Hand in hand with a strong German navy is the 
necessity for a strong army, large enough and efficient 
enough to intimidate France and Russia from pre- 

i'lbid. 

[9] 



The Cause of the Great War 

cipitating war." 15 Though the army is Germany's 
great defensive machine, taking in her behalf the 
place of the English Channel, the Alps and the Py- 
renees, it was still meant as was shown in the open- 
ing of the great war, to take the offensive. The Ger- 
mans aimed that the army be large enough in case of 
war to invade England, 10 and at the same time keep 
Russia and France at bay. 17 For years past there has 
been propagated in Germany the theory of Pan-Ger- 
manism explained elsewhere in this paper. 18 In this 
ideal there was embraced the hope of a union, through 
ties of race, between Germany and her two neighbors, 
Belgium and Holland. The position of these two 
countries, together with their wealth and their tradi- 
tions in European policies had led all the nations 
of Europe to attach great importance to them. Ger- 
many needed the strategic points that these two coun- 
tries controlled, especially since the Netherlands 
would furnish her with a suitable naval base from 
which she could command the Channel. From such 
a point Germany could contest the control of the 
Channel by England, or intimidate the English fleet 
to permitting German ships the freedom of passage. 
From Holland too, the German army could invade 
England to the best advantage, and from Belgium 

1B Usher, "Pan-Germanism," p. 102. 

16 The army of the first line is enough to crush France, even though a 

portion of it must be detached against England. — "German 

Newspaper.' ' 
1 'Usher, "Pan-Germanism," p. 103. 
18 Below, Chapter III, p. 35. 

[10] 



The Colonial Ascendency of Great Britain 

she could most easily invade France and reach Paris. 
Such a position held by a strong power would jeopard- 
ize, and even be fatal to the Triple Entente. It was 
to the advantage of England that inferior powers oc- 
cupy these points, and therefore she has always been 
very decided in her policy to keep these Low Countries 
neutral in case of an European war. England is fully 
aware of the fact that the efficiency of Germany's 
industrial organization is so superior that if she once 
got possession of such an advantage as the city of Ant- 
werp, for instance, which in its position rivals London, 
she would not only invade every field of the colonial 
world for their markets ; but she would insist on ac- 
quiring the political control of those fields, and thus 
jeopardize England's commercial empire. Germany, 
on the other hand, is fully cognizant of the fact that 
the only barrier in the way of realizing her commer- 
cial dreams, is England ; and it has been against her, 
primarily, that she has been directing her thrust. 

The idea of a balance of power among the several 
states of Europe had its rise as far back as the treaty 
of Westphalia in 1648. At that time it was first 
seen that a number of states in Europe of various 
sizes, interests and resources must exist side by side in 
some manner or other. This doctrine of a balance 
of power has been maintained with a greater or lesser 
degree of success ever since. Though some unfor- 
tunate states, like Poland and Turkey, have been 
preyed on and dismembered through "inadvertant" 

[11] 



The Cause of the Great War 

circumstances, there have been in the main few de- 
viations from this policy. One of its staunchest cham- 
pions has been England. However, there has seemed 
to be a degree of inconsistency in England's attitude 
regarding an equilibrium, as outside of Europe, in 
the colonial field, she has maintained the balance 
wholly in her favor. Nevertheless, during the Na- 
poleonic wars, England fought hard and well that the 
rights of some of the weaker nations of Europe be 
respected. In the Partition Treaties of 1698 and 1700, 
England intervened so as to prevent the Western 
Mediterranean from becoming a French lake. She lent 
her subsidies to Frederick the Great during the Seven 
Years War (1756-1763), lest the growing power of 
Prussia should be crushed and the Bourbons or the 
Hapsburgs gobble up Central Europe. Her motives, 
of course, have always been those of self interest, for 
she feared any power that might gain the ascendency 
in Europe and thus threaten her own. Now that the 
Germans were aiming at nothing short of the domina- 
tion of Europe, and even of the whole world, by the 
Germanic races ; and were not attempting at all to dis- 
guise their design, it seemed only natural that Eng- 
land should step in and attempt to intercept Ger- 
many's advance. As has been said, German aggres- 
sion has for years been the vital factor in the inter- 
national situation ; she has been determined to expand 
her territories and increase her wealth and power at 
the expense of her weaker neighbors. She had already 

[12] 



The Colonial Ascendency op Great Britain 

attained ' her territorial bounds; she repudiated Bis- 
marck 's doctrine of a " satiated state ' ' and entered on 
a policy of imperialism; and the consequent aggres- 
sion meant the acquisition of that owned by other na- 
tions. Her population was growing at such a rapid 
rate that it was almost impossible for even the ef- 
ficient, well trained men to get employment; in spite 
of the fact that her industry also was increasing at 
an astonishing rate. Unless some outlet could be 
found for her surplus population, and new and more 
extensive markets found for her surplus production, 
bankruptcy would be inevitable. Expansion was 
therefore an economic necessity for Germany ; but that 
expansion could be made only at the expense, di- 
rectly or indirectly, of England. Germany would 
either make an attack on the colonial empire of Eng- 
land, or she would crush France or Belgium or Tur- 
key ; any one of which would turn the balance to her 
advantage. England has thus far by alliances, and 
by her own naval strength sought to avoid such a 
contingency. 

Though the present world situation was brought 
about by a desire on the part of Germany to over- 
throw the world empire of Great Britain as a result 
of the economic progress of the past half century, fuel 
has been added to the flames continually by the pro- 
paganda of the agitators, and the flames fanned by 
the teachings in the schools. Treitschke, the German 
historian, more than anyone else is responsible for 

T 13 1 



The Cause of the Great War 

the anti-English sentiment which reigns throughout 
German society, and which shows itself in the Ger- 
man press. He was ever diligent in pointing his na- 
tion forward to the war with England which would 
result in the destruction of that power's supremacy on 
the sea. This, according to him, was to be the means 
by which Germany was to burst into the path of glory 
in the way of world dominion. He was especially 
chagrined by the British world dominance, because he 
attributed England's success to Germany's misfor- 
tunes. Had it not been for the fact that Germany was 
absorbed for centuries in civil and religious strife she 
might have made the Danube a German river, and es- 
tablished a German preponderance over the Bosporus 
to the Indies during the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries ; and thus be able by this time to far outstrip 
her rival. The cavalry general, Bernhardi, has taken 
it upon himself to perpetuate the teachings of 
Treitschke. The strongest motive, however, for the 
aggression of the Germans lies in the fact that they 
consider England's world preponderance wholly out 
of proportion to her real strength. It is, they say, a 
detestation and a sham, wholly rotten ; and it may en- 
dure for a time, but cannot endure forever. 18 

Germany regards England as being in her way in 
attaining the most efficient results in an economic way, 

10 "For Treitschke it is not genius, it is not valor, it is not even 
great policy as in the case of Venice, which has built up the 
British Empire ; but the hazard of her geographical situation, the 
supineness of other nations, the measureless duplicity of her min- 

[14] 



The Colonial Ascendency of Great Britain 

even in the times of peace. "The English Channel 
as the only available passageway for her fleets marks 
England as the greatest obstacle in the way of Ger- 
many's commercial growth. The voyage around the 
north is long, and in the winter dangerous even to 
steamships. Natural conditions, therefore, by com- 
pelling Germany to use the Channel, force her to ex- 
pose her commerce to the assaults of England's fleet 
so long as England controls the Channel. Even if 
she should acquire colonies she cannot really possess 
them without first acquiring a highway to them safe 
from the attack of her enemies. Short of conquering 
England and France, she can never free her commerce 
from actual danger. Without a great fleet in the 
North Sea strong enough to terrify England into in- 
action, she cannot even be assured of the continuance 
of her present freedom of passage. 20 

"What stands in the way of these desires and as- 
pirations? Germany has but one enemy, one nation 
that blocks the way — England. Thirty years ago 
this answer was vague ; but since that period it has 
steadily grown more distinct ; and since 1898 and the 
organization of the navy league ; since the South Afri- 
can war, and the outbursts of political and personal 
hatred to England at that time, it has grown still more 

isters, and the natural and innate hypocriey of the nation as a 
whole. These have left this monstrous empire grow — a colos- 
sus with feet of clay. . . 'Old England,' old indeed, and corrupt 
and rotten through and through." — Cranio, "Germany and 
England," lecture III, pt. VI, p. 105. 
' "Usher, "Pan-Germanism," p. 9. Published Feb., 1913. 

[15] 



The Cause of the Great War 

precise. England bars the way to the realization of all 
that is highest in German life." 21 

Furthermore, Germany regards the English as the 
unlawful possessors of the colonial field. " These 
men — Treitschke, Bernhardi, etc., as a justification 
of this 'nachste krieg' point to the broad fact that 
the English race is the possessor by theft of one fifth 
of the habitable earth. By what right? By the right 
first of craft, then of violence, German indignation 
then takes the place of German analysis. Cooped up 
between the North Sea and the Danube, the Rhine, 
and the plains of Poland, conscious of our strength, 
exerting an ever increasing pressure on our frontiers 
— can we, or ought we to acquiesce to England's pos- 
session of one fifth of the globe ? Ought the patriotic 
German submit to seeing his nation depleted year by 
year? Can he under these circumstances retain his 
manhood ? Is it all right for England to protest that 
she has no aggressive designs upon Germany? Eng- 
land's mere existence as an empire is a continuous 
aggression. So long as England, the great robber 
state retains her booty, the spoils of the world, what 
right has she to expect peace? Germany possesses 
nothing and could do everything. What edict, hu- 
man or divine, enjoins us to sit still ? What are Eng- 
land 's title deeds, and by what rights does she justify 
her possession? By the law of violence." 22 Such 

21 Cramb, "Germany and England," Lecture I, pt. II, pp. 14-15. 
22 Ibid. 

[16] 



The Colonial Ascendency op Great Britain 

sentiments as these on the part of Germany give the 
trumpet no uncertain sound and the Germans had 
been preparing themselves for the battle. 

The English justify their attitude of intercepting 
the German advance in the arguments that self-preser- 
vation is the first law of life, and that possession is nine 
points in the law. What " squatter" who has pion- 
eered the way to the western prairies in the United 
States, for instance, would think for a single moment 
of relinquishing his homestead rights, and turning 
over his possessions, for which he has made sacrifices, 
at the clamor of any chance new comer? Again the 
English regard the Germans as a people with no na- 
tural genius for empire either in the way of coloniza- 
tion or of imperial policy. With all their great an- 
tiquity, and traditions as a race, they had failed to 
consolidate into imperial unity until an extremely 
late period in history. They have also failed as the 
governing power, to assimilate the French provinces, 
Alsace and Lorraine, or even what is known as Ger- 
man Poland. With the native races of the lands which 
they have acquired they are forever at variance, hav- 
ing had recourse to the sword even to the extent of 
massacre. In the lands to which he emigrates the 
German does not retain his individuality; for in 
Russia he soon loses his nationality, and in America 
only a few years are required to effect a complete 
political conversion, for in the second generation he 

[17] 



The Cause of the Great War 

becomes American in sympathy, in habit, and in in- 
tellectual outlook. 

England, with the present political status of her 
colonial empire, did not want war. At the opening 
of the twentieth century she was just in the place 
where all her policies called for peace. 23 She had been 
developing in the past by outward expansion, due to 
war ; the future called for development along the line 
of internal organization which could be furthered only 
by peace. Her task was to establish an imperially 
representative government that would bind her colon- 
ial empire into one solid political unit. Thus far the 
war has revealed that even in her present political 
status the British Empire is not a colossus with feet 
of clay. Her integral colonial units have loyally has- 
tened to the support of the home government. With 
France crushed and Russia reconciled, Germany, it 
seems would still have a colossal task before her in dis- 
integrating the British Empire. As it is Germany's 
will to power has come athwart England's desire for 
peace; the power of Germany is by no means in- 
significant, and the future alone will determine the 
outcome. 

23 Cramb, "Germany and England," p. 143. 



[IS] 



CHAPTER II 

The Rise and Progress of 
Imperial Germany 

THE beginning of the modern Germans as a 
separate people, has its date immediately after 
the breakup of the empire of Charlemagne in 
843 A. D. The extensive empire founded by Charles 
the Great in 800 A. D. embraced the present states of 
France, Northern Italy, Switzerland, most of Ger- 
many, Austria and the Netherlands; 24 nations which 
represented the Gallic and Germanic races. Before 
Europe became civilized these two peoples occupied 
adjoining tracts on either side of the Rhine ; but in 
the subsequent national development that took place 
each of these two races retained its peculiar charac- 
teristics. The Gallic peoples were welded into the 
solid French nation; while the Germanic peoples re- 
fused to give up their separate existence and clan 
nish individualism, a tendency that seemed to prevail 
among them far up into the nineteenth century. For 
over thirty years of his reign, Charlemagne hurled at- 
tack after attack upon these pagan Saxons that dwelt 
across the Rhine; and when he at last succeeded in 
bringing into submission their most warlike chief, 

24 See map in "Robinson's History of Western Europe," p. 82. 

[19] 



The Cause op the Great War 

many showed a determination to remain independent 
still by fleeing the country to Scandinavia to man the 
Viking ships of later times. 25 

These trans-Rhenish territories were incorporated 
into the empire of Charlemagne, who thus laid the 
foundation of modern Germany, together with that 
group of nations which later rose in Western Europe. 
After the death of Charlemagne his empire, in 843, 
was partitioned among his three grandsons. To 
Charles was given France, Lewis was awarded Ger- 
many and Lothaire was to possess Italy, with a narrow 
strip extending northward between the territories of 
the other two. From this time on the history of the 
Germans as a separate people has its beginning. 
Though united for a short time under Charles the Fat, 
in 887 the integral parts of Charlemagne 's empire rent 
asunder forever, and the portion on the east bank of 
the Rhine from that time on was known as the Teu- 
tonic Kingdom. Charles had failed in his attempt to 
establish a world empire. 

In the latter part of the tenth century, Otto the 
Great, having subjugated a number of neighboring 
races, conceived the idea of restoring once more the 
old Roman Empire. 28 This was a second attempt on 
the part of a German prince to establish a universal 
empire ; a dream that has been revived again and again 
in German history, and the one that has finally hurled 

!B Myers, "Mediaeval and Modern History," III. 

2 "See Bryce, "The Holy Roman Empire," pp. 130-142. 

[20] 



The Rise and Progress op Imperial Germany 

all Europe into the present world catastrophy. It was 
this same impractical project on the part of German 
Emperors that kept Germany disunited up until the 
last half of the nineteenth century. In attempting 
to grasp too much they succeeded in acquiring noth- 
ing. In their attempt to acquire foreign dominion 
they ceased, in the end, to be even rulers of Germany, 
and the result was provincialism, disintegration and 
ruin. 27 The vassals of the Emperor, while he was en- 
gaged in external affairs, increased their powers in 
their respective provinces, and thus could assert much 
independence. Unlike England and France, where 
the sovereigns succeeded in consolidating the political 
power of the nation into a single unit, the king, whose 
throne was hereditary by primogeniture, Germany 
fell into the political anomaly of numerous provinces, 
each a political unit, and the sovereignty of which did 
not fall to the eldest son ; but as in the case of Charle- 
magne 's empire, was separated among the heirs. As 
a result, Germany became a disconnected, war-ridden 
aggregation of petty principalities which was known 
in history up to the time of the first Napoleon as the 
Holy Roman Empire. Even such a powerful monarch 
as Charles V could not bring these stubborn, inde- 
pendent, German princelings under an absolute sway. 
With no state powerful enough to take the hegemony, 
and to concert the several racial and religious inter- 
ests into any sort of a solid political unit, Germany, 

27 Myers, "Mediaeval and Modern History," pp. 325-326. 

[21] 



The Cause of the Great War 

for decades at a time, became a war scathed arena, 
the bloody battleground of all Europe. 28 

This state of things continued with no signs of a 
change until the rise of the Hohenzollern line of kings, 
and the Prussian hegemony, which had its beginning 
in the first half of the seventeenth century. Frederick 
the Great (1740-1786), the third king in the line of 
this family, by a series of successful wars, was instru- 
mental in winning great prestige for the Prussian 
state. He elevated her power even to an equality with 
that of Austria, and thus laid the foundation for the 
union of the German states which had failed to con- 
centrate about Austria ; but which from this time on 
began to lean towards the leadership of the dynasty 
founded by the House of Brandenburg. From this 
time on until the unification of 1871, the history of 
the Germans centers about the rivalry betwen Austria 
and Prussia with their respective satellite group of 
neighboring states, joined to them through political 
and religious motives. Prussia progressive, liberal 
and Protestant was pitted against Austria reactionary, 
despotic and Catholic. Each was jealous of the other, 
and each desired to gain power and prestige at the 
expense of the other. At last things began to turn in 
Prussia's favor, 29 liberal ideals began to prevail, Ger- 
man literature was commanding increasing respect 

28 For a single instance of the evil effects of the lack of unity and co- 
operation among the several German states see Henderson's 
"Short History of Germany," Vol. I, p. 496. 

2 'Priest, "Germany since 1740," pp. 55-65. 

[22] 



The Rise and Progress of Imperial Germany 

after the death of Goethe in 1832 when his name was 
on every tongue; 30 but in spite of the fact that the 
spirit of nationalism rose higher and higher there 
was still no national unity. 

Finally there arose in Germany a man of large vi- 
sion and extraordinary powers. This was Otto von 
Bismarck 31 who first entered public life in 1847, and 
began his diplomatic career in 1859. This keen states- 
man planned for Prussia a great and brilliant future 
by making her the dominant power in Germany 
through a policy of blood and iron. In 1862 he became 
the prime minister of William I, and from that time 
on he was bent on a single purpose — the hegemony of 
Prussia. For this purpose he determined to use the 
national revenues in creating an efficient army; a 
policy which he closely pursued, in spite of all opposi- 
tion. The end justified the means, was his argument, 
and his end was to make Prussia great by any means. 
In 1864, in conjunction with Austria, he culminated 
a war against Denmark and acquired Holstein for 
Austria and Schleswig for Prussia. He next picked 
a quarrel with Austria, at that time one of the strong- 
est states in Europe, and after a quick decisive cam- 
paign of six weeks' duration, wrested Holstein from 
her grasp. He then turned upon France which at this 
time was in a state of internal disorganization, and 
after a brief campaign, the Prussian armies were in 

*°Ibid, p. 89. 

81 Collier, "Germany and the Germans," pp. 88-104. 

[23] 



The Cause of the Great War 

Paris. These magnificent triumphs of Prussian arms 
aroused all Germany to admiration. The Germans had 
at last found a leader and they decided to follow 
wherever Prussia might lead. Thus on November 12, 
1870, a parliament of the north German states voted 
to request the king of Prussia to become Emperor of 
a united Germany. This request was granted and on 
January 18, 1871, at Versailles, in the midst of great 
demonstration, William I of Prussia was solemnly 
proclaimed Emperor of Germany. 

Bismarck had succeeded in binding Germany to- 
gether with sinews of iron; he next determined that 
there should be built in her ribs of gold. He had suc- 
ceeded in attaining the political unity of the several 
German states, his next step was a determination on 
making her a great commercial and industrial state, 
which sustained on a basis of militarism, he aimed 
should some day burst through her present bounds; 
and by the veritable force of the impact expand in 
Europe. Germany had always been more or less in- 
clined to the pursuits of trade ; for she was the home 
of that mediaeval organization, the Hanseatic League ; 
and the later Zollverein, 32 another league for commer- 
cial betterment, which did much to bring about the 
political union of the nineteenth century. Now, how- 

82 The Zollverein was a custom union formed between a number of the 
German states in 1818, and culminating in the union of 1871. 
Its object was to relieve the oppressive tariffs between the several 
German states, which were a great hindrance to the., internal 
commerce of the times. 

[24] 



The Rise and Progress op Imperial Germany 

ever, with her political unity accomplished, Germany 
entered on a commercial and industrial career that has 
had no precedent in the history of any other nation. 
But Bismarck was never wholly led over to the side 
of that class of agitators that advocated over sea ex- 
pansion, notwithstanding the fact that he was instru- 
mental in adding to the Fatherland a number of small 
islands in the South Pacific and several considerable 
tracts on the African coasts. He was never much of 
an imperialist, 33 and in most of the colonial acquisi- 
tions made under his ministry his hand had almost 
to be forced by the sentiment created by the agitators. 
In one of the Congresses he made the remark that 
the whole question of the Orient was not worth the 
finger bone of a Pomeranian grenadier. He displayed 
a total unconcern in the Balkan question, and utterly 
failed to realize how vital was the nationalization of 
these states to the future of the Germany he was build- 
ing. 3 * He was tireless, however, in directing his great 
intellect to the development of the internal resources 
of the new empire and was fully determined to main- 
tain the military power and prestige of Germany. He 
also sought, for the security of the Empire, the alli- 
ance of other powers, and when the power of the So- 
cialists threatened to undermine the administration he 
stole their thunder by the adoption of state socialism 
and a sysem of paternalism. 35 

88 Dawson, "The Evolution of Modern Germany," p. 334. 
34 Gibbons, "The New Map of Europe," p. 45. 

86 Robinson and Beard, "The Development of Modern Europe," Vol. 
II, p. 137. 

[25] 



The Cause of the Great War 

The impetus given by the consolidation of Ger- 
many to her industrial prosperity caused her to be- 
gin to look to outside markets for the surplus products 
of her factories. But while she sought to extend her 
markets she desired also that these markets should be 
under her own flag and subject only to her own poli- 
tical influences. Unfortunately, as has been said, Ger- 
many like Italy, entered at an extremely recent date 
the field of colonial activity ; so that most of the avail- 
able portions of the earth had already been acquired 
by England, France, and Russia. This fact has been 
the source of untold trouble in diplomatic circles ; and 
it has been one of the most exasperating causes of the 
present world conflict. As is natural, England is the 
one nation that is more concerned about the disposi- 
tion of what little available colonial territory is left. 
Her interests demand that none of her possessions be 
menaced or any of her commerce be hampered by any 
nation which takes over lands or islands adjacent to 
hers. Her most dangerous rivals very naturally would 
be France, Russia and Germany; and were the eco- 
nomic interests of each of these in the same relation as 
those of Germany and England, the colonial empire 
of the latter power would be in serious danger. As 
it is, Germany only is to be regarded as a menace. 
England does not fear France, first, because that na- 
tion itself is threatened by Germany on the east and 
for that reason must seek alliances to assure her very 
existence. Again, so long as the growth of the popula- 
te ] 



The Rise and Progress of Imperial Germany 

tion of France is at a standstill, there will be little 
demand on her part for colonial territory. England 
does not fear Russia so long as that great empire is 
land-locked, and continues in her failure to find an 
ice free port. Germany, on the other hand, is the 
one power that England fears above all others. The 
increase of her population that reaches near the 
million mark each year, 36 the backing of her colonial 
aspirations by the building of a powerful navy, and 
the outstripping of Great Britain herself in the in- 
dustrial and commercial domain, make Germany a real 
menace to the British ascendency. 

The colonial and commercial rivalry between Great 
Britain and Germany during the last quarter of a 
century has been very sharp and interesting. In fact, 
it has several times before the fatal August, 1914, 
brought Europe on the verge of war. As it happened 
the diplomats succeeded in shifting the conflict to 
the interests of some of the smaller states, and the re- 
sults have been such issues as the Turco-Italian war 
and the Balkan Crises. The commercial ascendency 
of the Germans is due to several causes. In the first 
place protection was given to the German manufac- 
turers by the Government through prohibitive import 
duties. At first Bismarck had favored a policy of 
free trade ; but almost forced by the position of some 
of the other countries in the issue, he suddenly shifted 

36 See Dawson, "The Evolution of Modern Germany," p. 336. 

[27] 



The Cause of the Great War 

to the advocacy of protection. 37 Thus in 1878 a pro- 
gram of tariff revision, which involved two points, was 
presented in the Reichstag: (1) protective duties de- 
signed to give German industries the advantage over 
foreign products; and (2) a reduction of duties on 
raw materials not produced in the empire. This really 
opened a new era in the economic career of Germany ; 
for in adopting this new system of tariff laws a policy 
was inaugurated that has made Germany one of the 
greatest manufacturing countries in the world. 

The unparalleled development of German industries 
and commerce has been accomplished by scientific meth- 
ods and organization. It has not been due so much 
to the quality of the German goods ; for they them- 
selves refer to them as "schlecht und billig". 38 Yet, 
in spite of the fact that they are recognized as ' ' cheap 
and nasty" as the English translate it, the latter also 
saw within a few years their own manufacturers out- 
stripped in every market. 39 To protect themselves, as 

* 7 "Both France and America have completely forsaken free trade; 
Austria, instead of reducing her protective duties has' increased 
them; Russia has done the same. . . . Therefore no one can ex- 
pect Germany to remain permanently the victim of its sincere be- 
lief in the theory of free trade. Hitherto we have thrown open 
our doors to foreign goods, and so we have become the dumping 
ground for all over production of other countries. Let us close 
our door and erect the somewhat higher barriers that are pro- 
posed, and let us see to it that we secure the German market for 
German manufacturers.'' — Bismarck, Speech in the Reischstag, 
see Robinson and Beard, "The Development of Modern Europe," 
Vol. II, p. 142. 

38 "Poor and cheap." 

'•"Germany's industrial expansion is best illustrated by the statistics 
of foreign trades. It is estimated that the imports of Germany 
in 1860 amounted to £54,750,000; exports £70,000,000. In 

[28] 



The Rise and Progress op Imperial Germany 

they thought, against the goods of their rivals, Parlia- 
ment passed an act requiring all German goods sold 
within the British Empire, to be labeled "Made in 
Germany ' ' ; but soon even her own people bought the 
goods so marked in preference to those of her own 
producers. The Germans made it a point to make 
their goods attractive both as to their appearance 
and their price. They resorted to show window meth- 
ods in marketing, whereas the English thinking them- 
selves secure in the fact that their goods were of a 
better quality, left them done up in brown paper 
on the shelf. The result was that while the English 
goods were really of a much better quality, they re- 
mained on the shelf for lack of a demand. English 
conservatism would neither take the goods from the 
shelf or remove the brown paper. 40 Germany main- 
tained a monopoly in the manufactured compounds 
used in dyeing, medicine and photography which 
places the world today in a humiliating place of de- 
pendence. In 1897, Germany imported $3,200,000 
worth of indigo ; ten years later she exported $2,000,- 
000 worth of indigo. This reversal of the market was 
due solely to the invention of the method of making 

1880 Germany's total imports for home consumption were £141,- 
000,000 and her imports of manufactured goods for home con- 
sumption were £30,100,000; its total exports of native products 
were £144,800,000; and its exports of manufactured goods of 
native origin were £83,500,000. The value of its imports in 
1907 was £356,000,000. The value of the imports for industrial 
purposes increased from 1895 to 1905, from £90,250,000 to £172,- 
850,000." — Dawson, "The Evolution of Modern Germany." 
*°See Whitman, "Imperial Germany," Ch. XII, p. 263. 

[29] 



The Cause op the Great War 

indigo artificially. Large corps of chemists were 
kept at work from year to year at a great expense 
until it was worked out. It cost one company $4,000,- 
000 before they got any returns but it finally paid. 
German commercial leaders have more accurate in- 
formation about the natural resources and trade pos- 
sibilities of some of the countries they aim to invade 
commercially than the rulers of those countries them- 
selves. Germans abroad, too, are constantly on the 
lookout for new markets for their manufactures. 

It is a German theory that their foreign trade can 
succeed only if it is carried in German ships. As a 
result they have developed within a few years a 
merchant marine that has astonished the whole world ; 
and although Germany is still outstripped by the in- 
crease in the British merchant marine, she is con- 
sidered as a serious menace to the British superiority. 

Thus as a result of scientific management applied to 
manufacture, salesmanship and administration, Ger- 
many has made greater strides and proportionate 
gains in wealth than any other country with the ex- 
ception of the United States. And it is this very- 
thing that has led to German imperialism. Seeking 
new markets in countries where she could exercise also 
a political sway, she was seeking, in reality, new colo- 
nial possessions. Her economic expansion demanded 
these new markets, they were her crying need; but 
the field having been almost wholly occupied it was 
evident that Germany was preparing to take posses- 

[30] 



The Rise and Progress op Imperial Germany 

sion of a colonial field at the expense of some other 
nation. Seeking new markets in a colonial field al- 
ready occupied by England, France and Russia her 
interests were bound to conflict with the interests of 
these powers, especially with those of England who 
held the lion's share in that she controlled one fifth 
of the habitable land area of the globe. 

Thus by every force of circumstances, Germany, 
Austria, and Italy who came late to their political ma- 
jority, threatened by their neighbors who looked with 
jealous eyes upon their consolidation and consequent 
commercial expansion, formed in 1882 a defensive al- 
liance to promote their mutual interests. This, the 
Triple Alliance as it was called, has sought to pro- 
mote the common aims and ambitions of these three 
powers against their three more formidable rivals who 
had been annexing the bettef parts of the African and 
Asiatic continents while they had been engaged with 
internal problems. England, France and Russia, on 
the other hand, have formed what is known as the 
Triple Entente whose object, they claim, is to main- 
tain the necessary European equilibrium. The fact 
is that while they have seemed bent on sustaining 
this European equipoise they have also determined to 
secure an extra-European balance wholly in their own 
favor. In other words, England, France, and Russia, 
the three great imperial powers, have united to keep 
Germany out of the colonial field where her expanding 
commerce has been forcing her. This has been the 

[31] 



The Cause of the Great War 

cause of so much unrest in Europe, also of German 
militarism, and the menacing naval policy that 
brought on the war. 

That Germany has succeeded in gaining colonial 
possessions in various parts of the world, in spite of 
the fact that it had been already mostly occupied is 
due to her spirit of enterprise and daring. It has 
been due also to a propaganda carried on at home, 
coupled with the support of the Government. In 1878 
an African society was established for the purpose of 
carrying on exploration and educating public opinion 
in favor of colonial expansion. Trading posts were 
built and government protection was urged. In 1884 
a German protectorate was formed over Togoland and 
Kamerun on the west coast of Africa. In the same 
year Angra Pequena was obtained. In 1890, for a con- 
sideration of one million dollars a strip on the east 
coast of Africa, opposite Zanzibar, 600 miles in length, 
was obtained. At this period also Germany came into 
the possession of Kaiser Wilhelm's Land in New 
Guinea, the Caroline Islands except Guam, and a part 
of the Solomon group. 

In 1907, not wishing to be outdone by England, 
France and Russia in the Far East, Germany seized 
the port of Kiaochow on the Shangtung peninsula, 
opposite Korea. It was when the expedition to this 
port was undertaken by his brother, Prince Henry, 
that the Emperor exhorted him, whenever German 

[32] 



The Rise and Progress of Imperial Germany 

rights were assailed, to use the mailed fist.* 1 Outside 
of these Germany has held no lands under her direct 
political dominance. There have been other coloniz- 
ing schemes, but these have been merely for opening 
new markets or for accommodating her superfluous 
population. These are the Trans-Caucasian agricul- 
tural settlements established by some "Wurttemberg 
farmers. In Palestine there are the Good Templar 
colonies on the coast, which have prospered so well 
as to arouse the resentment of the natives. The 
Baghdad Railway has turned Germany's attention to 
the fertile region of Anatolia and Mesopotamia for 
commerce rather than for possession. In South 
America there are the various German settlements; 
but here the interests also are economic more than po- 
litical. Thus far the colonial acquisitions of the 
German people are of doubtful value ; many of them 
are wholly unsuited for settlement by German emi- 
grants; and there has been a growing expense at- 
tached to their maintenance. Even before they were 
taken away in the present war most of them could be 
regarded merely as coaling stations and naval bases; 

41 "And may our countrymen out there cherish the firm conviction, 
whether they are priests or merchants or whatever profession 
they follow, that the protection of the German Empire as ex- 
emplified in the Emperor's ships will continuously be granted 
them I But if anyone should undertake to insult us in our rights 
or wish to harm us, then drive in with the mailed fist and, as 
God wills, bind about your young brow the laurels which no one 
in the entire German Empire will begrudge youl" — Gauss, "The 
German Emperor," p. 120. 

[33] 



The Cause op the Great War 

and no doubt they were regarded by the Germans as 
the stepping stones to greater things, places from 
which they might be enabled to strike and operate 
when once they were ready to carry out the project 
of the Weltpolitik. 



34 



CHAPTER III 

Pan-Germanism and the Weltpolitik 

HAND in hand with that desire of Germany to 
expand her territorial limits and the estab- 
lishment of a great world empire, go the pro- 
paganda of Pan-Germanism and that of the Weltpoli- 
tikj a twin scheme, long harbored in the German mind, 
to make a "Deutschland iiber alles". The doctrine of 
Pan-Germanism, briefly, is a dream of the restoration 
of the empire of Charlemagne, built up and directed, it 
would seem, under the sway of the present House of 
Hohenzollern. When this dream of an all German 
union should once be realized, the next step would be 
the sudden disruption of France, and the utter de- 
struction of the British Empire, and lastly the final 
domination of the whole world by a German civiliza- 
tion. Their connotation of the word German has led 
the people of Germany itself to think of all the ter- 
ritories outside of their own immediate political and 
geographical confines, that have been historically or 
racially associated with the German Empire of days 
gone by, as essentially and rightfully theirs; and the 
Germans who dwell therein as their co-heirs in a 
proposed great world state; and that these will even- 
tually join their interests with those of the present 
German Empire. These territories include such 

[35] 



The Cause of the Great War 

states as Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and 
even the Scandinavian country Denmark. Taken in 
a broader sense also, Pan-Germanism is an attempt 
to strengthen "Deutschthum" throughout the world 
by binding all Germans to the Fatherland through ties 
of patriotism and race. 

The movement had its origin, or at least it was given 
a mighty stimulus, as early as the sixties of the last 
century when a large number of books and pamphlets 
first appeared. In 1861, for instance, in an atlas pub- 
lished by a leading German scholar, a map was shown 
with the title ; ' ' France as Germany would like to see 
it." This represented Alsace and Lorraine, with 
other portions of near Germany, as German territory. 
The "Classical Atlas" of a certain Herr Stieler, pub- 
lished in 1869, went a great deal farther by setting 
forth Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and Denmark 
all as German lands. This was done notwithstanding 
the fact that these had been for a long time well 
established and independent governments. The Ger- 
mans realized, however, that the desired expansion 
could never be accomplished as long as France re- 
mained as a great power. It was a stock phrase of 
the Pan-Germanists that many millions of Germans 
would be "lost" to the Empire if large tracts of 
French territory were not annexed, and in addition, 
it was certain that France would always strenuously 
oppose the expansion of Germany into such a country 
with a strategic significance like Belgium. Therefore 

[36] 



Pan-Germanism and the Weltpolitik 

the fulfillment of the dream for empire was made to 
depend on the extinction, or at least the disabling of 
France. 42 Just as they used to say in Rome: "De- 
lenda est Carthago", so they were now saying in Ger- 
many: "France must be destroyed." 43 At any rate, 
so at least the geographers candidly expressed it, 
France was primarily a small kingdom born of the 
dismemberment of Charlemagne's Empire, and has 
expanded only at the expense of Germany. This idea 
became so fixed in the mind of the German people that 
they felt fully justified in putting France out of the 
way, a fact that was fully proven at the outbreak of 
the present war when as a first move Germany at- 
tempted a death drive to the very heart of that 
republic. 

So industrious were the Germans in propagating 
this theory that they succeeded in spreading this 
delusion among certain classes in England, America, 
Russia and even France itself. By ceaseless sugges- 
tion ; by insinuations in lectures, in magazines, in text 
books, in pamphlets the German people were wholly 
convinced of the decadence of France; and at the 
same time they were always stimulated to the belief 
of Germany's portentous future. They were always 
taught the necessity of insuring this future by every 
possible means; by the spread of the German "Kul- 

42 Cramb, "Germany and England," Lecture III, pt. VI, p. 103. 
* 3 Beveridge, German thought back of the war, "Colliers," May 8, 
1915, p. 8. 

[87] 



The Cause of the Great War 

tur", by the expansion of German commerce, and 
even by dint of military power. 

To the Germans, Pan-Germanism meant self pre- 
servation ; a determination to preserve and to 
strengthen the life of a great people. If it has not 
been, primarily, their intention to unite the Germanic 
nations by a tie of political unity; it has been, at 
least, a project to bind them together through racial 
and economic interests; either of which if success- 
fully accomplished would make the Teutonic element 
the preponderating one in Europe, and hence a men- 
ace to the other nations. Pan-Slavism is an offset to 
this contingency, and the Triple Entente is a guar- 
antee against it. Germany has been conscious of her 
growing strength and of her growing heeds, one of 
which is a larger domain. Of late years the enormous 
growth and increasing energy of the German Empire 
has driven her to fresh expansion over sea ; and a part 
of the mission of Pan-Germanism is to link up her 
scattered colonial elements, and by maintaining in 
them the sentiments of their nationality, preserve 
them as instruments of "Deutschthum". 44 

The Pan-Germanic sphere of influence is thus prac- 
tically world wide. It covers Europe — Scandinavia, 
Denmark, the Baltic provinces, Bohemia, Austria, the 
Tyrol, parts of Hungary, the Balkan states, Turkey in 
Europe, Switzerland, Holland and Belgium. Besides 
this there is a Pan-German propaganda in Asia Minor, 

* 4 Colquhound, "The Whirlpool of Europe," Chapter XII, 252. 

[38] 



Pan-Germanism and the Weltpolitik 

and among the Boers in South Africa. In North 
America it seeks to preserve the national sentiments 
in the individual where he is so easily and so rapidly 
assimilated, as in the United States. In South Amer- 
ica that sentiment is also being preserved in whole 
communities of German colonies, as in Brazil and 
Argentina. And throughout the whole world, wher- 
ever German citizens are engaged in commerce, in 
education, or in religious work, the spirit of Pan-Ger- 
manism is at work. The Emperor himself is deeply 
interested in the movement, and has often given ii" 
official sanction in his speeches. 45 

In connection with Pan-Germanism, one of the most 
potent causes of the present world conflict is the ideal 
known as the Weltpolitik of the Germans. It has been 
the most vital and burning question with which diplo- 
mats in recent years have had to deal. This hallucina- 
tion of the German idealists, but recently conceived 
in the minds of the German people, has so developed 
that it is the engrossing thought of the whole German 
nation. When the Germans took up arms at the open- 
ing of the present conflict they took them up with 
the glowing hope that the culmination of the war 

45 "Out of the German Empire a world empire has arisen. Every- 
where and in all parts of the world thousands of our countrymen 
reside. German riches, German knowledge, German activity, 
make their way across the ocean. The value of German posses- 
sions over the sea is some thousands of millions. Gentlemen, the 
serious duty devolves on you to link up this greater German 
Empire by helping me in complete unity to fulfill my duty to- 
wards Germans in foreign parts." — Colquhound, "The Whirl- 
pool of Europe," p. 253. 

[39] 



The Cause of the Great War 

would open up the way for the realization of this 
ideal. Pan-Germanism aims to bring the Germans of 
all nations under a civilization whose standard is the 
"Kultur"; the Weltpolitik aims at the spreading of 
that civilization over the whole earth. It is a pipe- 
dream to the effect that the German race will one day 
predominate the earth in a great world empire in 
which the German "Kultur" 4 " will pre-eminently 
flourish. 

The spread of the Weltpolitik is not merely the re- 
sult of the propaganda of a party, or of a society, or 
of any small clique of over-enthusiastic idealists; but 
it has been greatly encouraged by the Government it- 
self, and it has been seconded by the hearty support 
of the people. It may have had its origin in the 
doctrines of such teachers as the historian Treitschke ; 
but it seemed so inherent in, so constitutional with the 
German people that they absorb it; its spread is 
spontaneous, and its existence now is a sober fact, 
pervading all classes of German society from the 
Kaiser down to the workingman. It has been preached 
from the pulpit, heralded by the newspaper, taught in 
the schools, incorporated into the text-books, and 

4 "The German "Kultur" according to Professor Harnack embraces 
three attitudes for aspirations of the mind and heart. First, 
thoroughness, the wish to get at the bottom of things. Second, 
altruism — the opposite of selfishness, we wish to form a union 
as high as human life, and as deep as human misery. Third, the 
wish to see all temporal things in an eternal light ; the desire to 
connect all our thoughts and actions with the everlasting purpose 
and prayer to be co-workers with God in making ourselves and 
our fellowmen better and happier. 

[40] 



Pan-Germanism and the Weltpolitik 

vitalized by the novelists until it has become the one 
grand pulsating thought of the whole German nation. 

A few quotations set forth by Herbert Adams Gib- 
bons from the works of some of Germany's greatest 
thinkers will convince the most sceptical that the teach- 
ing not only exists, but they will also show how out- 
spoken and unequivocal these writers are in pronounc- 
ing the doctrine. These men are individual Germans 
but they voice the sentiment of the whole German 
people when they flaunt before them first of all, the 
belief in the superiority of the German race and its 
world civilizing mission. The anthropologist Wort- 
man looking from the viewpoint of biologists says: 
"The German is a superior type of the species 
homo sapiens from the physical as well as the intellect- 
ual point of view." 47 Werth says: "The world 
owes its civilization to the German alone," 48 
and, "The time is near when the world will in- 
evitably be conquered by the Germans." 49 Paulson 
writes : ' ' Humanity is aware of and admires the Ger- 
man omniscience." 00 Even the world-character, 
Goethe, long before the consolidation of the German 
Empire, said : "The German alone is to make the habit- 
able world worth living in." 61 Over a century ago 
Fichte also said to the Germans : " Be patriots and we 
shall not cease to be cosmopolitan." 52 

Not only have the Germans magnified their own 

* 7 Gibbons, "The New Map of Europe," pp. 21-57. 

* 8 Ibid. •"'Ibid. B °Ibid. sl Ibid. s 2 Ibid. 

[41] 



The Cause op the Great War 

race ; but they did not cease to slur and minimize the 
men of other races. "Frenchmen are monkeys, and 
the best and strongest element in the French race is 
German by blood/" 3 is a statement of Hummel; also, 
"The Russians are slaves as their name implies." 54 
Treitschke wrote of the British that "Among them 
the love of money has killed all sentiments of honor 
and all distinction of just and unjust.'" 5 Such state- 
ments as these not only sound a note of disparage- 
ment towards other races; but clearly indicate that 
the German thinks he outclassess, mentally, morally 
and physically, all other peoples. The world must 
for its own sake be Germanized is only another way 
of saying that the German culture is the highest in the 
world ; that Germany is looking for a wider field for 
her genius to expand, and is merely making this an 
excuse for her aggression. The vast military and 
naval preparations that Germany has been making 
during the last quarter of a century do not encour- 
age the world to believe that Germany aimed to ful- 
fill her mission by means of the pen alone. The world 
has never been slow to recognize that which excels, 
be it in the way of moral, intellectual, or physical 
culture. The German culture as such has never come 
into general notice, but has so bristled with militarism 
as scarcely to be recognized outside of that guise. Deep 
down in the hearts of the men, the Krupp-Kaiser-Kul- 
tur-Klique, who at this time direct the destinies of 

5;, Ibid. E *Ibid. 66 IMd. 

[42] 



Pan-Germanism and the Weltpolitik 

Germany, behind the assertion of a superior culture 
and the protestation for the necessity of its defence 
is the desire for the colonial ascendency of the German 
people for commercial ends. 

Pan-Germanism is a defensive movement for self 
preservation against the pressure of France and Rus- 
sia who, the Germans think, are determined on their 
destruction ; the Weltpolitik is an offensive movement 
directed, primarily, against England, its ultimate ob- 
ject being the acquisition of the English possessions in 
various parts of the world. In this way Germany 
expects to get an outlet and a broader field for her 
expanding industry and commerce. To it is due, 
largely, the militarism of Germany and her menacing 
naval program that has long threatened the peace of 
Europe. To it is due also the attitude of England 
towards Germany in the Morocco affair, in the Persian 
episode, and in the extending of the Baghdad Rail- 
way. As long as Germany exhibits the spirit of build- 
ing an empire at the expense of other empires, Eng- 
land will refuse to give her leeway. 



[43] 



CHAPTER IV 

The Moroccan Crisis 

WHENEVER he thought au opening pres- 
ented itself William II, the present Emperor 
of Germany, made every arrangement to give 
the Weltpolitik a free course. He was especially dili- 
gent in directing his attention to those backward coun- 
tries of the old World whose internal wealth appealed 
to his commercial ambitions and whose political gov- 
ernments he thought, disorganized. He was one of the 
main instigators in, and made due preparations for 
the partition of China; 56 but he had to abandon the 
enterprise. 67 He also attempted to support the Boers 
in their war with England, that he might step into 
a chance open door in South Africa; 58 but his better 
judgment soon caused him to desist. This he did not 
do, however, until after he had sent a telegram of 
encouragement to Paul Kruger, the Boer leader, 68 an 
incident that caused quite a stir for a time in diplo- 
matic circles. He tried to get a footing in South 
America bj^ sending a fleet to Venezuela that he might 

66 See Krausse, "The Far East, Its History and Its Questions," pp. 
169 and 244. 

E7 The Chinese situation was adjusted by a conference of the Powers 
at Peking in a Protocol issued and signed September 7, 1901. 

B8 Rose, "The Origin of the War," Appendex II, p. 190. 

B9 The Kruger telegram was sent on January 3, 1896, after the suc- 
cessful repulse of the Jameson raid. 

[44] 



The Moroccan Crisis 

demand, at the camion's mouth the payment of debts 
owed to some Germans; but in this incident he was 
intercepted by the Monroe Doctrine. 60 As a final 
venture he thought of opening Morocco to the trade 
and enterprise of Germany, and to secure for her a 
commanding naval base ostensibly Agadir, on the 
western coast of Africa. 

In order to understand the tangled Moroccan situa- 
tion at this time, it will be necessary to review and 
to keep in mind a few incidents of international 
significance that occurred there since the opening of 
the twentieth century. Morocco is one of those back- 
ward nations of Africa whose strategic value is great ; 
since it flanks the whole southern shore of the Mediter- 
ranean opposite Gibraltar, and extends southward 
far down the west coast of Africa. Its economic im- 
portance too is by no means insignificant, as it is 
especially rich in mineral wealth, and possesses a fer- 
tile soil, and is capable of almost infinite development. 
In area it is equal to Germany ; and in many ways it 
presented an admirable field for German colonization. 
In this country France had already succeeded in 
gaining a slight foothold. Its importance to her lay 
in the fact that it bordered on the east the French 
possessions of Algeria ; and its eastern border had for 
two generations been subjected to a peaceful pene- 
tration by France. 

6 "German warships were sent to Venezuela in December, 1902. 

[45] 



The Cause of the Great War 

In the month of April, 1904, the two governments 
of France and Great Britain came to a general under- 
standing with regard to their possessions and spheres 
of influence in North Africa. By this agreement, later 
to be known as the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale, 61 
the two countries separated their respective colonial 
empires on the Dark Continent by certain well-defined 
lines. France agreed that Egypt should be under 
British control, and England announced that as far 
as she was concerned, Morocco was henceforth to be 
French. Later at a convention held in Madrid a 
Franco-Spanish program in regard to Morocco was 
agreed to. This was a mutual promise to defend each 
other in the protection of their respective interests 
in Morocco; but no actual agreement was made to 
carry out this defense beyond the exercise of diplo- 
matic pressure. These accords were secret, and their 
exact terms were not known until the later incident 
at Agadir, in 1911, made necessary their publication. 

Almost immediately after this the German Govern- 
ment found a favorable moment to express its dissatis- 
faction with this agreement that it surmised these gov- 
ernments had made. Russia had been defeated by 
Japan and was so disorganized as to render her part 
of the Russo-French Entente nil. 62 Great Britain 
also had not yet recovered from the disaster of her mil- 

O1 0xford Faculty, "Why we are at War," p. 51. 

62 The Russo-French Entente of 1896 was a step taken by these two 
governments to counteract the growing menace of German milit- 
arism. Since 1886 the utmost efforts of France had succeeded 

[46] 



The Moroccan Crisis 

itary campaigns in South Africa and, at the same 
time, her domestic politics were in a chaotic state. It 
was a case where Germany, so at least she thought, 
could make the extremity of the Triple Entente her 
opportunity; so the Kaiser took the occasion to make 
that sensational visit to Tangier, which brought 
France and Germany on the verge of war. On the last 
day of March, 1905, Emperor William entered the 
Harbor of Tangier, Morocco, on his private yacht, the 
Hohenzollern, and to a mixed assembly of German 
residents and native dignitaries he made a flaming 
speech in which he greeted the representatives of the 
Sultan as those of an independent sovereign ; and 
vouched to maintain the integrity and independence 
of that state. In this speech he said, in part: "I am 
happy to recognize in you, devoted pioneers of Ger- 
man industry and commerce, who are helping me in 
the task of always upbuilding in a free land the in- 
terests of the mother country. The sovereignty and 
integrity of Morocco will be maintained. In an inde- 
pendent country such as Morocco, commerce must be 
free. I will do my best to maintain its politico-econ- 
omic equity." 63 

The result of this visit of the German Kaiser was 
electrical in England and in France. The Germans 

in raising her peace establishment to 545,000, and her total 
strength to 4,000,000 against Germany's peace footing of 800,000 
and total strength of 5,400,000. Her alliance with Russia was 
only a way of counter-balancing the numerical superiority of the 
German army. 
83 Progress of the world, in "Review of Reviews," XXXI, p. 530. 

[47] 



The Cause op the Great War 

already possessed vast economic interests in Morocco, 
one fifth of the export trade of the country was con- 
trolled by them, and this was a direct challenge on the 
part of the German Government for a share in shap- 
ing the political affairs of Morocco. As it developed 
later it was also a stroke towards obtaining a ' ' say so ' ' 
in any future international situation that might come 
up. It was an answer also to the Anglo-French accord 
in which Germany had been utterly ignored. Under 
the circumstances England was in no position to stand 
back of France ; German pressure was brought to bear 
more and more ; M. Delcasse, the French foreign min- 
ister was forced to resign ; and Europe decided to settle 
the Morocco situation in a general conference of the 
nations interested. 64 

In January, 1906, according to an understanding 
previously agreed to, thirteen delegates representing 
Morocco, the several European powers involved, and 
the United States, met in a conference held in Alge- 
ciras, a small town in southeastern Spain, to settle, if 
possible, the dispute over Morocco and to decide the 
international status of the North African province. 
The German representatives maintained the complete 
independence of Morocco, and the sovereignty of her 
Sultan. The British delegates took the point of view 
that Morocco was purely a French problem, and stead- 
ily supported this point. They sustained the French 
interests insistently. On April 5, Chancellor von 

64 Rose, "The Origins of the War," pp. 75-77. 

[48] 



The Moroccan Crisis 

Biilow declared in the Reichstag that the time had 
come when German interests in the remaining inde- 
pendent portions of Africa and Asia must be consid- 
ered by Europe. On April 7, the convention was 
signed by all the delegates and agreed to by the Sultan 
later in July. Finally on December 31, 1906, the rati- 
fication by all the powers was deposited in Madrid. 
The agreement was to hold good for five years. It 
provided for a Moorish police force to patrol the pro- 
vince. This force was to be commanded by Moors, 
who were to be assisted by French and Spanish officers 
and supervised by a Swiss Inspector General. A state 
bank was also provided for, and censors appointed by 
the several governments interested. Later (in 1909) 
a separate agreement was made that denned the pecu- 
liar interests of Germany and France in Morocco. In 
going to Tangier, and in forcing the conference of Al- 
geciras, Germany laid down the principle that hence- 
forth there must be equal opportunities for Germans 
in the countries that were still independent; and she 
took the opportunity to declare to the world that she 
was prepared to enforce the principle. Germany's re- 
markable growth in population, and in industrial and 
maritime enterprise was seeking to be recognized as 
having a proper place in the colonial field. 

France, however, was determined not to give up her 
dream of a vast colonial empire in North Africa that 
would include Morocco also. To accomplish this the 
downfall of the Sultan's authority was a necessary 

[49] 



The Cause of the Great War 

step. She therefore winked at the anarchy on the Al- 
gerian frontier, and permitted it to go on unchecked ; 
in this way inviting interference and making military 
measures justifiable. At the same time the German 
colonists were doing their best to stir up things in such 
a way as to bring on intervention by Germany. Late 
in the year 1909 an attack upon some railroad work- 
ers near Tangier resulted in the death of five Spanish 
subjects. Civil war also broke out in Morocco, and 
after a successful revolt by Mulai Hafid, the latter 
was proclaimed sultan in 1907 and later was recog- 
nized by the powers with the understanding that he 
recognize the agreement made at Algeciras. 

Finally the Sultan besieged in his capital, Fez, by 
an army of rebels, called upon the French Government 
to rescue him. The Berber tribes had risen in revolt 
and were actually attacking the city where some Euro- 
pean residents were in danger. This was the hour 
that the French had long looked for; and a relief 
column of native troops, but officered by Frenchmen, 
immediately proceeded to the gates of the capital and 
took possession of the city. The Europeans in the city 
were safe enough; but Mulai Hafid 's brother had set 
himself up as pretender to the throne, so that the Sul- 
tan, unable to retain his power, was forced to place 
himself under the protection of the French army. By 
this step Morocco lost her independence. Thus was 
skillfully terminated the long pursued design of a 
French preponderance over Morocco. 86 

6 B "Review of Reviews," Vol. 36, pp. 63, 102, 273, 407; also Vol. 45. 
p. 671. 

[50] 



The Moroccan Crisis 

As soon as Germany saw that she had been outwitted 
in Morocco, a protest was at once sent by the Govern- 
ment that the action of the French was in direct viola- 
tion of the Algeciras agreement. The French, however, 
persisted in their course. Their ally Great Bri- 
tain, was unembarrassed at this time by South African 
troubles, and the German Government, seeing its 
plight, shifted its position by asking what compensa- 
tion France would give Germany for a free hand in 
Morocco. The pourparlers dragged on through sev- 
eral weeks in June ; but France refused to recognize 
any grounds for compensation to Germany, and firmly 
maintained that the recent action in Morocco had been 
at the request of the Sultan, and that it was purely a 
matter between that prince and France. 

Germany saw that a bold stroke was necessary. On 
July 1, the Berlin Foreign Office expressed its dissatis- 
faction with the course of the Paris Government by 
despatching the gunboat Panther to the port of Aga- 
dir. The pretext for this step was the protection of 
Europeans at that point ; but the real object of the in- 
terference was to prevent Great Britain and France 
from monopolizing Morocco without the consent of 
Germany. Her object was to enforce the right which 
had been conceded her at Algeciras; namely, to have 
a say as to the disposition of the extra-European ter- 
ritories still independent. On the same day that the 
Panther was sent the German ambassador notified Sir 
Edward Grey that the warship had been despatched 

[51] 



The Cause of the Great War 

to Agadir ; and explained that Germany considered the 
question of Morocco re-opened by the French occupa- 
tion of Fez. He thought too that it would be possible 
to make an agreement with Spain and France for the 
partition of Morocco. Germany demanded also a new 
agreement which would recognize her obvious interests 
in Morocco and to which she would be a party. In 
case that France refused to concede such interests in 
Morocco as Germany's own interests made desirable, 
she demanded a cession to her by France of a small 
district in the French Congo which she deemed im- 
portant as a strategical position. 

Sir Edward Grey, after a consultation with the 
Cabinet, announced that Great Britain could recog- 
nize no change in Morocco without first consulting 
France, with whom she was bound by treaty. The 
ambassador then explained that the matter in the 
whole affair lay directly between Germany and France, 
and that the notification made to the British Govern- 
ment had been merely in the nature of a friendly 
explanation. It was right at this point that Germany 
believed that the hands of the British Cabinet were 
tied by the pending political crisis in Great Britain, 
and that England was in no place to back France in 
the latter 's assertion of preponderance in Morocco. 
This situation is what led the Berlin Office to propose 
to France the concession of certain territories in Cen- 
tral Africa in lieu of giving Germany a free hand in 

[52] 



The Moroccan Crisis 

Morocco. The Kaiser felt that the moment was well 
chosen and that there was every hope of success. 

The fact, however, that British solidarity was not 
threatened as was thought, led Lloyd George to warn 
Germany of the danger of pressing too far her claims 
on France. This was in July. Throughout August 
and September, as it happened, Germany, cognizant 
of Russia's predicament in regard to her treaty rela- 
tions with the United States over some Jewish pass- 
ports ; also of her threatening revolution within ; and 
of her embarrassment regarding the Shuster affair in 
Persia, saw fit to make some demonstration and to try 
to force the issue with France. Thus it was that 
France, uncertain of the support of Russia and by 
mistake not too confident that aid would be forthcom- 
ing from England, was influenced to treat with Ger- 
many on the Morocco question. As a result a French 
protectorate was established in Morocco on March 30, 
1912. The Sultan signed away his independence by 
the treaty of Fez. Germany waived her own right to 
take part in the negotiations concerning the Moroccan 
spheres of influence between Spain and France. 
France agreed to maintain an open door in Morocco 
and not to hinder the extension of German industry 
and commerce in that province. France also ceded to 
Germany certain territories in the Kameruns, and 
Agadir was abandoned by the Germans. 

The attempt of the Kaiser to gain possession of the 
port of Agadir was a well defined scheme to control 

[53] 



The Cause of the Great War 

much of the world's market and colonial field. The 
reason for this strenuous attempt was two fold. First, 
it was a point from which she could command and in- 
crease the colonial possessions already acquired, and 
further those enterprises already inaugurated ; second- 
ly, Agadir was an excellent point to develop the dar- 
ing scheme to get possession of the lion's share of the 
South American trade which was at that time largely 
controlled by Great Britain. It was within easy reach 
of Brazil, and moreover it commanded the British 
ocean routes to South Africa, India, and Australia. 
This is one of the facts that explains the interest of the 
British in the affair; since Agadir could be trans- 
formed into a naval base of much strength, and hence 
be a menace to the British supremacy. 

There was a secret purpose also involved in the 
movement upon Morocco. Germany had long been 
aware of a secret alliance between England and 
France, but had been unable to learn the exact terms. 
She desired to learn what the real strength of this al- 
liance was, and consequently raised the issue with 
France when the opportunity arose. This would 
promptly reveal the question whether England would 
aid France in a matter in which the former had no 
direct concern. She desired to learn the real strength 
of the Anglo-French Entente; and in this way she 
might compel one or the other to divulge its terms. 
Germany had much to gain, in this way and others, 

[54] 



The Moroccan Crisis 

in an aggressive movement upon Agadir; and it did 
not appear that she had anything to lose by it. 

Again, the financial dependence of Germany on the 
other powers was brought out by the incident. In 
Germany the feeling in favor of war ran high. The 
Junkers succeeded in impressing the Kaiser with the 
idea that, if it did not come to open war, at least a dem- 
onstration should be made with the intention of discov- 
ering the rapidity with which the French army could 
mobilize. This was done; and the Government at- 
tempted to procure at Berlin the ready money to en- 
able the mobilization of the German army. Then a 
fact which astonished the German nation became mani- 
fest. German business was being transacted by money 
borrowed from abroad ; and German financiers had ex- 
tended their borrowing operations to the extent that 
ninety per cent of the current business transactions 
depended on time or call loans secured in Paris and 
in London. By a concerted action of the financiers, 
when the step of the German Government became 
known, these loans were called in. Germany immedi- 
ately found herself embarrassed and on the verge of 
a financial panic. Banks were about to suspend specie 
payment, and were almost bankrupt. Germany found 
herself without money with which to carry on war. 
When she called on the great banking houses of Paris 
and London the Emperor was informed that no money 
out of these places would be forthcoming without an 
agreement, signed in the Kaiser's own handwriting, 

[55] 



The Cause op the Great War 

that the money would not be used for military pur- 
poses. Of course this was refused, and she then turned 
to the American financiers for aid, by whom she was 
accosted with the same demands. Thus was revealed 
to the German Government, and to the world, not only 
its dependence on foreign finance, but also the fact 
that there was a secret understanding between the En- 
tente powers and the United States. 60 

The result of the Morocco crisis in France and Ger- 
many was to increase the naval and military arma- 
ments of the two nations and the spirit of tension 
which has so long existed between them. It has led 
Germany, also, to brace herself for the inevitable con- 
flict between herself and Great Britain, whom the af- 
fair revealed to have wedded her colonial interests with 
those of France. 

80 Usher, "Pan-Germanism," p. 163. 



[56] 



CHAPTER V 

The Strangling of Persia 

THE Mohammedan countries of Africa and Asia, 
still independent, seem to have been during the 
first decade of the twentieth century a special 
field of contention for the colonial and commercial as- 
pirations of some of the nations of Europe. The ex- 
ploitation of the Ottoman Empire, and the attempted 
seizure of Morocco for a similar purpose has brought 
Germany into conflict with England and France on ac- 
count of a friction of interests; in like manner, the 
fortunes of Persia, the third, and last independent 
Mohammedan country, as they affect Germany on the 
one hand and England with Russia on the other, have 
done much to precipitate the present disastrous 
world war. 

Though the interests of Germany in Persia were, in 
a way, largely prospective, and hence not quite so vital 
as those in Turkey and Morocco, they were neverthe- 
less real. Germany had not yet made her commercial 
invasion into Persia so extensive as to be able to de- 
mand a dictum in the political disposition of that na- 
tion ; but her interests in a contiguous territory, 
Asiatic Turkey, were of such a nature as to make her 
a factor in the controversy. And she did not hesi- 
tate to make her influence felt. In this chapter we 

[57] 



The Cause of the Great War 

shall endeavor to follow the fortunes of the Persian 
people since the opening of the twentieth century, 
showing how they affect the present crisis in Europe. 
In the middle of December 1905, the Persian parlia- 
ment issued a manifesto indicting the reigning Shah 
with political and administrative incompetency. It 
declared that as a consequence anarchy prevailed 
throughout the Persian state ; and that the only 
remedy was the establishment of a constitutional form 
of government. 67 Discontent showed itself also among 
the people in open rioting; and finally, in July 1906, 
between fourteen and fifteen thousand citizens, de- 
claring themselves secessionists from the Persian auto- 
cratic rule, placed themselves under the protection of 
the British legation at Teheran. The Constitutional 
party were members of influential families who had 
studied in Europe, and who had imbibed deeply the 
spirit of the French Revolution. This fact, together 
with the demonstration at Teheran, led the Shah to 
convoke a National Convention known as the medjliss, 
a committee of notables gathered out of those provin- 
ces nearest the capital. This quasi-representative body 
drew up a constitution which it forced the Shah, now 
dying, to recognize and sign; so that on New Year's 
day 1907, this new constitution of Persia was promul- 
gated. 88 

6 7 "The Outlook," Vol. 87, p. 884. 

fl8 "The Outlook," Vol. 85, p. Ill; "Review of Reviews," Vol. 35, 
p. 155. 

[58] 



The Strangling op Persia 

In the very same month that this new constitution 
went into effect the old Shah died and was succeeded 
by his son, who signified that he was willing to adhere 
to the instrument acknowledged by his father. This he 
failed to do, however, until the following October; 
and he further postponed the taking of the oath of 
fidelity until the following November. This procrasti- 
nation led some to believe that their ruler was attempt- 
ing a reactionary movement, and the result for a time 
was confusion. The suspicions were well founded ; 
for the new Shah, Mohammed Ali Mirza, proved to be 
a reactionary of the worst type, 69 and a second revolt 
followed. In this revolution the Nationalists were 
again successful, and Ali Mirza was forced to acknowl- 
edge the validity of the constitution. In his objections 
to the constitution the Shah had no personal motives ; 
he merely voiced the decision of the clergy who held 
that such a form of government was contrary to the 
laws of Islam. 

Simultaneously with the publication of the Persian 
manifesto, but altogether independent of that event, 
Great Britain and Russia decided to take action in 
Persian affairs. This unhappy country had the mis- 
fortune to lie across the path of Russia in her aggres- 
sion towards the Persian Gulf, and in her long con- 
templated designs on India. Russia had already ab- 
sorbed Turkestan into her imperial domain, and now 
Persia only lay in her way. Though Constantinople 

« e "The Outlook," Vol. 90, p. 806. 

[59] 



The Cause of the Great War 

was her ultimate goal, Russia had seen for some time 
that the longest way around was the quickest means 
of reaching her destination ; she would strangle and 
swallow up Persia, and then advance to the Turkish 
capital through the latter 's unprotected Asiatic pos- 
sessions. Shut up in the Baltic, thwarted in her de- 
signs on the Pacific, and icebound for most of the year 
in the north, Russia's only hope of obtaining a warm 
water port lay towards the south, and of this hope she 
was very jealous. Her interests in this direction, there- 
fore, were bound up in the disposition that might be 
made of the Persian state. 

But Russia had a wary contestant to deal with here 
in the south, the destinies of a part of whose colonial 
empire would be greatly effected by any possible dis- 
posal of Persia. This was Great Britain, who had al- 
ready extended her political sway over all the territory 
between Persia and her own Indian empire by virtual- 
ly absorbing Baluchistan. The Muscovite has always 
been the hereditary enemy of England, in spite of 
cordial and entente understandings, and she does not 
intend to permit the Russian to gain access to open 
water on the Indian Ocean or on the Persian Gulf. 
Russia, however, now took advantage of the fact that 
Germany's hostile attitude in the Moroccan affair 
made Great Britain desirous of a free hand; so she 
took this occasion as an opportunity for action in 
Persia, and the result was the Anglo-Russian agree- 

[60] 



The Strangling op Persia 

ment of 1907. 70 According to this understanding, 
Persia was divided into three sections; a Russian 
sphere of influence in the north, an English sphere of 
influence in the south, and a neutral zone in the center. 
This neutral zone, it must be understood, faced the 
Persian Gulf so as to shut Russia out of a warm water 
port on that body of water. In the agreement it was 
specified that the two powers respect the independence 
and vouch for the integrity of the Persian state. Fu- 
ture events will indicate that they utterly failed to do 
this, hence the Anglo-Russian agreement marks the 
passing to the political dependence that is now her lot ; 
a condition that is far more humiliating than that of 
Morocco; for she was consigned to a single master, 
while Persia has to endure two. 

For years Persia, though comparatively remote from 
the chief center of interest, has been the scene of a long 
struggle for commercial ascendency, by the leading 
powers of Europe ; namely, Russia, England, and Ger- 
many. The country is of considerable economic impor- 
tance; in territorial extent it is only a little smaller 
than France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary com- 
bined; it contains about 10,000,000 inhabitants; and 
is rich in mineral wealth. Much of it is desert; but 
about one third of it is under cultivation, and its soil 
is very rich. But most important of all is its strategic 
position. Its boundaries are contiguous to those of 
Asia Minor ; and flank the Baghdad Railway along the 

7 °See Browne, "The Persian Revolution of 1905 to 1909," pp. 172-195. 

[61] 



The Cause of the Great War 

rich Tigris-Euphrates valley, upon which England has 
long had designs. It controls also the northern coast 
of the Persian Gulf, and likewise the coast road to In- 
dia. From the military point of view, that power 
which could control its harbors would have a base from 
which to command the route to India. In it, at the 
head of the Persian Gulf opposite Koweit, could be 
made the terminus of the Baghdad Railway. The roads 
to the Black and Caspian sea from India, the Persian 
Gulf, and Southwestern Asia all pass through Persia ; 
which makes it of great consequence to Russia. Its 
vital importance to both England and Russia was a 
factor in its not being reduced to the absolute control 
of either in the accord of 1907 ; hence it would be fatal 
to permit it to fall under the influence of any power 
whose interests were at variance with theirs. 

For years past German merchants had looked upon 
Persia, as they had also looked on Turkey and Moroc- 
co, as a legitimate field for their commercial expan- 
sion, which with them was always coupled with inten- 
tion of political predominance. It was another of 
those possible locations for settling Germany 's surplus 
population, and for gaining that much conveted place 
in the sun. But just about the time when a wider 
opening seemed possible, the Anglo-Russian treaty 
of 1907 was a door shut in Germany's face which she 
has been unable to reopen. She tried in two ways to 
gain access to and influence the convention that form- 
ulated the agreement ; first, she argued that her inter- 

[62] 



The Strangling of Persia 

ests in Asiatic Turkey demanded that she have a voice 
in regard to the disposition of so close a neighbor as 
Persia; and secondly, she sent her agents among the 
Nationalists who pointed out to them that Great Bri- 
tain and Russia were merely conspiring against Per- 
sian independence. But all her efforts were in vain; 
for in the latter case she failed because at this time 
Russia and England had not yet forfeited the confi- 
dence of the Persians. Thus the Entente powers suc- 
ceeded in utterly thwarting Germany in this part of 
the Near East ; and the incident Germany could neith- 
er forgive or forget. The victory in Morocco ; the clear 
evidence that Germany's financial situation made war 
impossible ; suggested to the Triple Entente the ex- 
pediency of immediate action in Persia, where matters 
had been progressing steadily in a direction favorable 
to Germany's plans. 

It was to secure the loans made by British and Rus- 
sian financiers that partly brought about the agree- 
ment of 1907. These loans were made in 1900 and 
amounted at this time to $12,000,000. Persia was 
fully cognizant of the fact that to reassure her inde- 
pendence these loans must be paid; and accordingly 
she determined on a complete reorganization of her 
finances. Notwithstanding the protest of Russia and 
Great Britain made at that time, the Persian parlia- 
ment in March, 1911, voted to appeal to the United 
States and ask the Government at "Washington to 
choose five American experts to undertake the reor- 

[G3] 



The Cause of the Great War 

ganization of the financial system of the Persian Gov- 
ernment. The American State Department selected 
W. Morgan Shuster as Treasurer General. Mr. Sinis- 
ter undertook the financial reform and succeeded. He 
failed, however, to recognize that the Anglo-Russian 
accord of 1907 was valid or seriously backed by those 
two Governments. In attempting to ignore that there 
were two spheres of influence, coercion on the part of 
the two powers forced the dismissal of the Treasurer 
General by the Persian medjliss. Russian cossacks 
and British troops crossed over the Persian borders 
simultaneously to put down revolution ; and the au- 
thority of the two guardian nations was by all means 
asserted. A too efficient government in Persia was 
found to be a menace to the interests of the two pow- 
ers ; and Persian independence was taken away in that 
an independent state was not permitted to manage its 
own affairs. England feared that to recognize the 
new state, and withdraw her representatives, would 
simply be throwing Persia up to Russian occupation ; 
this was the justification for her interference. In the 
occupation of Persia by Russia and England, the co- 
lonial ambitions of Germany were again foiled, and 
she still more uneasily awaited "the day of reckoning 
with Britain." 



[64] 



CHAPTER VI 

The Bagdad Railway Project 

THE onsweep to the East of German imperialism 
has had its boldest stroke and its greatest dis- 
appointment in a venture of German capitalists, 
backed by the German Government, known as the 
Baghdadbahn. 71 This venture, in its narrower and 
more open sense, is the commercial and industrial 
development of Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and other 
portions of Asiatic Turkey ; but in its wider and more 
secret intent, it is a scheme to connect the Persian Gnlf 
with the North Sea by a series of railroads, either 
owned and operated, or at least controlled by Ger- 
mans; and to build a great German empire in these 
long neglected seats of ancient civilizations. In the 
prosecution of this design on the part of the German 
capitalists, and the interference offered to it by Great 
Britain, we have a real reason of Germany 's hatred of 
England, and of England's deep seated fear of the com 
mercial aggression of Germany. It adds another cause 
to that race for armaments that has characterized the 
policies of both those nations of late. And finally we 
see in it the reason why the power of Turkey in 
Europe is still intact. 

71 Rose, "The Origins of the War," pp. 82-90. 

[65] 



The Cause of the Great War 

Early in the seventies a select committee of the 
House of Commons already had occasion to examine 
an English project for the construction of a railroad 
in Asia Minor which was to run from Alexandretta 
via Aleppo to Koweit; thus connecting- the northeast- 
ern corner of the Mediterranean with the Persian Gulf. 
Expert evidence taken at that time showed that this 
line would render enormous service to the British Em- 
pire as a second and more expeditious route to India ; 
and as opening access to untold mineral and agricul- 
tural wealth. Could the project have been carried out 
at this time, it would have been the means of avoiding 
much of that strife, bitterness, and jealousy between 
England and Germany that finally resulted in the 
Great "War. But private enterprise was unable to 
meet the expense of such a vast undertaking, the Gov- 
ernment did not seem fit to back it, and consequently 
the matter was dropped. 72 

It has been said that the real interpretation of mod- 
ern history is to be sought in economic facts. Not only 
Germany's history during the past quarter century 
has seemed to have been determined by the possibility 
of her commercial expansion ; but her destiny in the 
future seems to be determined by the same means. In 
her development of the Weltpolitik, 73 no greater possi- 
bilities seemed to offer themselves to Germany than the 
economic penetration of Asiatic Turkey. That vast 

72 Dillon in the "Contempory Review," May, 1903, p. 732. 
73 See above, Chapter III, p. 34. 

[66] 



The Baghdad Eailway Project 

Empire had long been on the wane and threatened 
with political disintegration ; a fact that has made it 
especially vulnerable to exploitation by an outside 
power. Side by side with this political incoherence 
there was a religious unity in that the Sultan, its sov- 
ereign, was the spiritual head of the whole Moslem 
world. Its capital, Constantinople, offered an ideal 
location for a center in which the development of the 
Weltpolitik ideal could be carried out. By a fusion of 
Pan-Germanism and Pan-Islamism (a thing not 
thought impossible by the Germans) by an alliance 
between the Kaiser and the Khalif, Germany would be 
in a place to be very influential in the whole Moslem 
world — Turkey, Egypt, India, North Africa, and 
Persia. Moreover the exploitation of the Sultan's vast 
domains offered great opportunity for German com- 
mercial and industrial enterprise. The Mesopotamian 
valley could, if watered by the Tigris and Euphrates 
rivers, be made into one great field of cotton for the 
German factories. The whole region is rich in min- 
erals and abounds in other natural resources. 

The occasion by which the German Kaiser took to 
gain the undying friendship of the Sultan was the Cre- 
tan affair of 1897-98. The insurrection which took 
place then was fed and fanned by the great powers of 
Europe. The island of Crete is of unusual strategic 
importance to the nations of Europe into whose pos- 
session it might fall. It has one harbor especially 
which might be made the base for striking at the Dar- 

[67] 



The Cause of the Great War 

danelles, the Straits of Messina, and the Suez Canal. 
When the powers of Europe threatened to resort to 
the international occupation of this island, at that 
time claimed by Turkey, Germany alone stood aloof. 
Her attitude on this occasion was due to an agreement 
between the Kaiser and the Sultan brought about in 
the following way. Early in the year 1897 the Kaiser 
made an extended trip throughout the Hither Orient. 
He visited Palestine, and laid in Jerusalem the corner- 
stone of a German church. At Haifa he addressed a 
great assemblage of German colonists. At Stamboul 
he was met by Abdul Hamid, the Sultan of Turkey, 
and it was there and then that the bargain was closed. 
The agreement gave the German Emperor the con- 
cession to build a railway line from Scutari, a terminal 
point on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus opposite Con- 
stantinople, through Anatolia, over the Taurus Moun- 
tains to Adana and Aleppo, thence passing through 
the southern part of Kurdestan to Mosul, near the site 
of ancient Nineveh; along the Tigris to Baghdad, 
where it crossed over to the Euphrates through Baby- 
lon southward to Bossora, and thence to its proposed 
terminus, Koweit, on the Persian Gulf. This was one 
of the most gigantic commercial concessions in all his- 
tory ; for it included not only the right of way for the 
railroad itself over a stretch of more than 1500 miles 
in extent ; but to the concessionaires was given in per- 
petuity the grant of 6.2 miles on each side of the pro- 
posed route. This would include an area of 18,000 

[68] 



The Baghdad Railway Project 

square miles in all, together with the right to navigate 
the rivers; build quays at Baghdad, Bossora, and on 
the Gulf; and colonize the zone. This was the price 
that the Sultan paid to the Kaiser for refraining to 
interfere in the affairs of Crete. 74 

Before this time, however, in 1888, a group of finan- 
ciers, backed by the Deutsche Bank, an institution that 
has been greatly instrumental in the development of 
Turkey and Asia Minor, asked for and received a con- 
cession for a railway line from Ismidt to Angora, 
which was later to extend eastward to Kaiserieh ; and 
also for a branch southward to Konia. The extension 
to Kaiserieh was never made, as the Germans did not 
desire to go in that direction ; so the spur to Konia be- 
came the main line. In 1900, the German Antolia 
Railway Company headed by Dr. Seiman, a distin- 
guished German banker at this time head of the 
Deutsche Bank, drew up an agreement with the Tur- 
kish Government by which it undertook to build and 
have ready for operation within a period of eight 
years, a standard gauge road from Konia to Bosra via 
Baghdad. This was an extension of the Angora-Konia 
line, and its estimated cost was to be $120,000,000. 
Before this project was completed, however, inter- 
national complications set in, and the road was never 
finished ; although a section of it was opened to traffic 
in 1904. 

Great Britain had always watched this proposed 

74 Powell, in "Everybody's Magazine," July 1909, pp. 1-12. 

[69] 



The Cause of the Great War 

scheme with fear and trembling. This was quite 
natural; since the line when completed would bring 
Central Europe, dominated by her invincible com- 
mercial rival, Germany, with her dreams of Pan-Ger- 
manism; into dangerous proximity to Great Britain's 
Indian Empire. This danger was magnified by the 
fact that Pan-Germanism with its interests in Turkey, 
the Balkans, and Central Europe, would control, per- 
haps a series of railways extending not only from the 
Bosporus to the Persian Gulf, but from the Persian 
Gulf to the English Channel. This would place Ger- 
many into closer communication with India than Eng- 
land herself. The fact that British interests had been 
shifted largely from the Dardanelles to the Suez zone, 
and that German interests were now predominating in 
the lands of the Sultan, making the Dardanelles and 
the Bosporus in a way really German straits, did not 
tend to ease the anxiety of Great Britain regarding a 
Calais-Koweit Railway prospect as a parallel, and a 
somewhat quicker, route to India than that by way of 
the Suez Canal. 

In the execution of Pan-Germanism, the Balkans 
have always been held before Austria by Germany, as 
the price for the latter 's allegiance to the cause. This 
bait, too, has always appealed to Austria, since her ex- 
pansion to the east has been cut off by Russia, and to 
the west she is shut off by the Alps. This has left as 
the only feasible field for her expansion the great 
plains of the Lower Danube and the Black Sea region, 

[70] 



The Baghdad Railway Project 

down through the valleys of Servia to the Aegean, and 
southwest to the Adriatic. The Balkans once in pos- 
session, the next step of Pan-Germanism would be the 
reorganization of Turkey; and Turkey once under 
their political domination, the bridge for Pan-German- 
ism between Europe and Asia would be secured. That 
being the case, there would then be in their possession 
not only an all-rail-all-German route from the Persian 
Gulf to the North Sea, situated as to cope with its Suez 
all- water parallel; but a base also would have been 
procured from which the Germans could strike at 
Suez itself. 

The English were desirous that, if the railway be 
built at all, it should be cosmopolitan in its manage- 
ment, and not be an enterprise predominately Ger 
man. That the Germans were contemplating an abso- 
lute, or at least a controlling interest in the scheme 
they thought was quite evident for the following rea- 
sons. The Kaiser 's own interest in the enterprise was 
second only to that in his fleet. This was shown by the 
fact that his ambassadors were straining every nerve 
to promote the scheme, and that the grant had been se- 
cured at his own personal and pressing solicitation. 
The German Government was also involved up to its 
eyes in the project. The German slogan, "Penetrate 
to the Persian Gulf", had been preached for decades 
by the prophets of Pan-Germanism. Long before the 
Baghdad Railway had reached so advanced a stage the 
thought of staking out claims in Asia Minor had been 

[71] 



The Cause of the Great War 

a fascinating one for the Germans. Shut out also from 
their designs on Africa and South America by the 
treaty of Great Britain with Portugal, the Germans 
would spare no means to make this project ; which was 
ultimately designed to connect Koweit with Calais; 
and which penetrated an independent and backward 
country, rich in natural resources, a purely Pan-Ger- 
manic enterprise. 

Futhermore, that the Germans aimed to be the con- 
trolling factor was manifest in the fact that German 
bondholders held 35% of the stock; a situation which 
would elect eleven directors out of the thirty who com- 
posed the board. The "Swiss" element also, which 
was in alliance with the Deutsche Bank, came in with 
three directors and ten shares. Besides this a strong 
Austrian element represented railway interests in the 
Balkans, which were already under the influence of 
the Deutsche Bank ; and this would contrive to control 
the traffic on this side of the Bosporus, as the others 
would that beyond the straits. Thus the German, 
Swiss, and Austrian interests would form a solid Ger- 
man block, controlling one half the capital stock, and 
electing fourteen directors to eight English and eight 
French. If the French and the English failed to 
unite their interests; a thing that could easily be ex- 
pected, especially if the railway succeeded in handling 
the traffic of Central and Western Europe; the Ger- 
man factor would easily be the ascendant one. 76 

7B Courtney in "The Fortnightly Review," May 1, 1903, pp. 809-826. 

[72] 



The Baghdad Railway Project 

But even if the British financiers could acquire a 
controlling interest, as the opportunity ostensibly was 
given them in 1903 by the promoters of the project, 
not one sound argument could be advanced for their 
participation in the scheme. In the first place, the 
line would be so manipulated in Central Europe as to 
promote the best interests of Britain's competitors 
there. Then as a parallel to the Suez Canal route, 
though it would be a shorter way to England 's Indian 
Empire, it would take away the traffic; and what is 
much worse, it would take away to a great extent the 
strategic significance of that point; since it was clear 
that Germany was aiming at the political dominance 
of Turkey, and that secured she would possess a base 
from which to strike at Suez in case of an European 
war. 78 Finally, the motive in the minds of the pro- 
moters was not altogether commercial, but to a great 
degree political. Germany desired to be brought down 
to the Persian Gulf before that important body of 
water could be reached by Russia ; and once in control 
of a port there ; and backed by a railway in touch with 
Central Europe, which was subject to German control ; 

78 "While the aspiring Great Powers of the Far East cannot at pres- 
ent directly influence our policy, Turkey — the predominant 
Power in the Near East — is of paramount importance to us. 
She is our natural ally ; it is emphatically to our interests that 
we keep in close touch with her. . . . Turkey also is the only 
Power which can threaten England's position in Egypt, and thus 
menace the short sea route and land communication to India. 
We ought to spare no sacrifices to secure this country as an ally 
for the eventuality of a war with England and Russia. Turkey's 
interests are ours. — Bernhardi, "Germany and the next War," 
p. 100. 

[73] 



The Cause of the Great War 

such a port could soon be made into a strong naval 
base which would thus put Germany well on the way 
to the mastery of the Indian Ocean. 77 

The Germans, on the other hand, have continually 
denied that their invasion of Asia Minor and the great 
Tigris Euphrates basin has been motived by anything 
save commercial considerations. They steadily insist 
that the opening up of these large territories for Ger- 
many is simply an enterprise by means of which it 
may be possible to open up for German capital and 
trade a new field of industry. They assert that the 
German promoters did their best to induce the Eng- 
lish and the French capitalists to co-operate in the 
building of the line. They deem it ridiculous that 
German policy should be reproached with the indict- 
ment that it has sought a footing in Asia Minor to the 
injury of other foreign interests. Like in other parts 
of the world, they were seeking in Asiatic Turkey new 
markets for their exports and a new sphere of invest- 
ment for their capital. The fact that Germany did not 

7 '"From the Turk could be secured the railway concessions which 
should join Constantinople with the Persian Gulf, whose existence 
would alone repay Germany and her allies for all expenditures 
and risks. It would be adequately protected by the new Turkish 
army and fleet. To insure its safety from an attack by Russia, 
Persia would be reorganized as an independent nation under 
German aegis. Thus also would be secured the coast road along 
the Persian Gulf to India, and the navigation of the Gulf itself. 
Both would put into her hands invaluable points. She would be 
led by the coast road into the valley of the Indus behind the 
great defences of Quetta; in the rear of the British position. 
A fleet entering the Indian Ocean from the Gulf would emerge 
behind the English naval defences, and see all India lying before 
her undefended. — Usher, "Pan-Germanism," p. 113. 

[74] 



The Baghdad Railway Project 

oppose but rather invited international co-operation 
was proof enough of her sincerity and good faith. 

Russia did not seem to realize the danger of Ger- 
many's influence at Constantinople, nor the outcome 
of the latter 's peaceful penetration of the Near East. 
She was too much occupied with her affairs in the Far 
East, and desired too much the good will of both Ger- 
many and Austria, to interfere or to protest even if 
she did see a serious menace to her interests in the 
south by the movements of Germany. The situation, 
however, was much different with England. That 
Government was quick to realize the menace of a Ger- 
man approach to the Persian Gulf, and she was also 
quick to act. At this particular time also her hands 
were free, since her attention had not yet been serious- 
ly directed to the South African trouble. Thus it was 
that while the German engineers were busy in the sur- 
vey of their proposed route to India, English diplo- 
mats suddenly began to busy themselves to thwart 
Germany's designs. 

An examination of the map of Western Asia will 
reveal the fact that the boundary line between Persia 
and Asiatic Turkey extends northward from the head 
of the Persian Gulf. Koweit is the only feasible ter- 
minus for a railway on the Turkish side of the line. In 
1899 the Sheik of Koweit, who is under the authority 
of the Sultan of Turkey and yet in a way independent 
of him, signed a secret agreement with Colonel Meade, 
the English resident agent of the Persian Gulf, which 

[75] 



The Cause of the Great War 

assured the Sheik the special protection of the British 
Government if he would make no concessions of ter- 
ritory to any foreign power without the knowledge and 
consent of the Government. Thus it was that in the 
following year, when a German commission arrived 
at Koweit to arrange for the terminus of the Baghdad 
Railway, they discovered that they had come too late. 
When a Turkish vessel, sent in 1901 to coerce the 
Sheik, appeared at Koweit it was immediately con- 
fronted by British warships sent to uphold the inde- 
pendence of Koweit. The situation did not change at 
the insurrection of the Young Turks in 1908. Koweit 
still remains independent, and Germany up to the be- 
ginning of the war remained blocked. International 
complications had set in to check the progress of the 
Baghdad Railway ; and Germany began to chafe more 
and more uneasily as she nervously awaited the day of 
reckoning with England. 



[76] 



Conclusion 

WE have endeavored to show in the preceding 
chapters that a colonial and commercial 
rivalry between Great Britain and Germany 
was in evidence during the last quarter of the nine- 
teenth century and continued in the present century 
up to the beginning of the Great War. We have also 
essayed to point out that this rivalry manifested it- 
self in such issues and crises as the Baghdad Railway 
Project, the Morocco Incident, the Persian Affair, Pan- 
Germanism and the Weltpolitik. These issues compli- 
cated and strained the diplomatic relations, directly 
and indirectly, of these two powers until the final 
break in 1914. 

The contest for trade and colonies had by no means 
been peculiar to the period mentioned above, but it has 
occurred again and again in the history of modern 
times. The East India trade was responsible in a large 
degree for the struggle between Spain and the Nether- 
lands. In the seventeenth century the cruel war be- 
tween the English and the Dutch was virtually a trade 
war. Commercial competition kept England and 
France in arms for the space of a whole century and 
more (1702-1815). Trade rivalries play an important 
part in bringing about the Napoleonic Wars. So also 
in the Crimean war, the Russo-Japanese war, and even 
in the Spanish-American war the trading motives may 
be seen. 78 

i 8 Johnson, Commerce and War, "International Conciliation," pp. 3-4. 

[77] 



CONCLUSION 

The present war in Europe, which has come to be 
known as the Great War, was due largely to a pro- 
tracted friction between Germany and England in 
which the latter, seconded by her allies of the Triple 
Entente, attempted to shut Germany out of the 
available colonial field of the world, in which 
field Germany was seeking an outlet for her 
increasing population and expanding trade. To just 
what extent these two elements (the colonial and com- 
mercial) were responsible in bringing on the present 
struggle the historian of the future can better deter- 
mine in the light of a retrospective view and fuller 
sources of information. We are not willing to take the 
stand with them who say that trade is naturally bound 
up with war and as a consequence the wars of the fu- 
ture will be more calamitous than those of the past. 
We rather take the view that, as the commercial rela- 
tions between nations become closer and closer as they 
do from year to year, international trade will be one of 
the most potent influences toward universal peace. We 
can see no reason why interstate commerce with the 
widely varying interests of the several states, should 
tend toward peace and unity while international trade 
should tend toward war, unless it is for the fact that 
the international statesmen are still blind to the truth 
that a single principle should underlie trade between 
individuals, between states, and between nations, 
namely the principle of a fair deal. 

[78] 



Bibliography 

Abbott, Wilbur C, Germany and the Prussian pro- 
paganda. Yale Review, July, 1915, 664-683. 

Allen, J. W., Germany in Europe. George Bell & 
Sons, London, 1914. 

Andrews, Chas. M., The Anglo-French commercial 
rivalry from 1700 to 1750. American Historical 
Review, xx, 539-556. 

Baldwin, Elbert Francis, The World War. The 
Macmillan Company, New York, 1914. 

Bernhardi, Frederich von., Germany and the Next 
War. Translated by Allen H. Powles. Longmans, 
Green & Co., New York, 1914. 

Beveridge, Albert J., German thought back of the 
war. Colliers, May 8, 1915, 8-9. 

Browne, Edward J., The Persian Revolution of 1905 
to 1909. University Press, Cambridge, 1910. 

Colquhound, Archibald R. and Ethel, The Whirl- 
pool of Europe, Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 
1907. 

Courtney, W. L., The Latin rapproachment and the 
Baghdad imbroglio. The Fortnightly Review, 
May 1, 1913. 

Cramb, J. A., Germany and England. E. P. Dutton & 
Co., New York, 1914. 

Day, Cltve, History of Commerce. Longmans, Green 
& Co., New York, 1907. 

[79] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Dawson, William Harbutt, The Evolution of Mod- 
ern Germany. T. Fisher Unwin, London and 
Leipsic, 1909. 

Dillon, E. J., The Baghdad Railway. Contemporary 
Review, May 1903, 733-750. 

Edmundson, George, The Anglo-Dutch rivalry dur- 
ing the first half of the seventeenth century. The 
Clarendon Press, 1911. 

Editorials, The Persian situation. The Outlook, 
1904-1911. 

Editorial, The Baghdad-Bossora railway. Harpers 
Weekly, May 9, 1903, 773. 

Gibbons, Herbert Adams, The New Map of Europe. 
The Century Co., New York, 1914. 

Gwinner, Arthur von., The Baghdad Railway. 
Nineteenth Century and after, June, 1909, 
1083-94. 

Johnson, Alvin S., Commerce and war. International 
Conciliation, April, 1914. 

Keller, A. G., Colonization, a study of the founding 
of new societies. Ginn & Co., Boston, 1908. 

Keene, A. H., Stanford's compendium of geography 
and travel. 2 vols. 2nd edition. Edward Stanford, 
London, 1909. 

Mach, Edmund von. What Germany wants. Little, 
Brown & Co., Boston, 1914. 

McCabe, Joseph, The evolution of imperialism in Ger- 
man literature. Nineteenth Century and after, 
June, 1915. 

[80] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Mims, Stewart, L., Colbert's West India policy. Yale 
University Press, New Haven, 1912. 

Morris, Henry C, The history of colonization from 
the earliest times to the present day. 2 vols. The 
Macmillan Co., New York, 1908. 

Oxford Faculty of Modern History, Why we are 
at war, Great Britain's case. 3rd ed. The Clar- 
endon Press, Oxford, 1914. 

Powell, E. Alex, The fight for the highway of na- 
tions. Everybody's Magazine, July, 1909. 

Parker, Gilbert, The world in a crucible. Dodd, 
Mead & Co., New York, 1915. 

Pepper, Chas. M., The West in the Orient. Scribner's 
Magazine, March, 1913, 318-325. 

Randall, A. W. O., Pan-Germanic education and the 
French decadence. Contemporary Review, Nov., 
1915, pp. 589-599. 

Ramsay, William, German "Kultur" as illustrated 
by German science. The Quarterly Review, 
April, 1915, p. 313. 

Robinson, James H., and Beard, Chas. A., The devel- 
opment of Modern Europe. Ginn & Co., New 
York, 1908. 

Rohrbach, Paul, German World policies (Das 
Deutsche Gedanke in der Welt.) Translated 
by Edmund von Mach. The Macmillan Company, 
New York, 1915. 

Shuster W. Morgan, The Strangling of Persia. The 
Century Co., New York, 1912. 

[81] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Smith, Adam, An inquiry into the nature and causes 
of the wealth of nations. 2 vols. Edited by Edwin 
Cannan. George Putnam's Sons, New York, 1904. 

Seignobos, Chas., 1815-1915 from the Congress of 
Vienna to the war of 1914. Translated by P. E. 
Matheson, Librairie Armand Colin, Paris, 1914. 

Sheip, Stanley S., Handbook of the European War. 
H. W. Wilson & Co., New York, 1914. 

Stead, Alfred, The Baghdad Railway project. Re- 
view of Reviews, XXIV. 

Slossen, Edwin E., The conquest of commerce. The 
Independent, Sept. 6, 1915, pp. 320-324. 

Shaw, Albert, Reopening of the Morocco question. 
Review of Reviews, XLIV, pp. 150-155; 284. 

Shaw, Albert, Persia, Russia, and Shuster. Review 
of Reviews, XLV, p. 49. 

Seeley, J. R., The Expansion of England. Little, 
Brown & Co., Boston, 1901. 

Sears, Edmund Hamilton, An outline of the political 
growth of the nineteenth century. The Macmillan 
Co., New York, 1908. 

Treitschke, Heinrich von., Germany, France, Russia 
and Islam., George Putnam's Sons, New York, 
1915. 

Usher, Roland G., Pan-Germanism. Houghton, Mif- 
flin & Co., New York, 1913. 

Vambery, A., Germany and Turkey. The Independ- 
ent, August 17, 1899, p. 2202. 

[82] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Woodward, William H., A short history of the ex- 
pansion of British Empire. University Press, 
Cambridge, 1899. 

Whitman, Sidney, Imperial Germany. The Chautau- 
qua Century Press, Meadeville, Pa., 1897. 

White, J. William, Deutschland uber alles. The Na- 
tion, December 24, 1914, p. 742. 



[83] 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS £] 



021 394 064 8 



